The two guards, being Scotch, responded to inquiries with extreme
caution. All that they would answer for was that the trunks were not in
the train. Then the train was drawn out of the station by a toy-engine,
and the express engine followed it with grave dignity, and Helen and
Jimmy were left staring at the empty rails.
"Something must be done," said Helen, crossly.
"Ay!" Jimmy agreed. "It's long past my tea-time. We must find out if
there's anything to eat i' Scotland."
But Helen insisted on visiting the stationmaster. Now, the stationmaster
at St. Enoch's is one of the most important personages north of the
Tweed, and not easily to be seen. However, Helen saw him. He pointed out
that the train came from London in two portions, which were divided in
Scotland, one going to Edinburgh, and his suggestion was that
conceivably the luggage had been put into the Edinburgh van in mistake
for the Glasgow van. Such errors did occur sometimes, he said, implying
that the North Western was an English railway, and that surprising
things happened in England. He said, also, that Helen might telephone to
Edinburgh and inquire.
She endeavoured to act on this counsel, but came out of the telephone
cabin saying that she could not get into communication with Edinburgh.
"Better go over to Edinburgh and see for yourself," said Jimmy,
tranquilly.
"Yes, and what about my steamer?" Helen turned on him.
"Scotland canna' be so big as all that," said Jimmy. "Not according to
th' maps. Us could run over to Edinburgh to-night, and get back to
Glasgow early to-morrow."
She consented.
Just as he was taking two second returns to Edinburgh (they had snatched
railway eggs and railway tea while waiting for a fast train) he stopped
and said:
"Unless ye prefer to sail without your trunks, and I could send 'em on
by th' next steamer?"
"Uncle," she protested, "I do wish you wouldn't be so silly. The idea of
me sailing without my trunks! Why don't you ask me to sail without my
head?"
"All right--all right!" he responded. "But don't snap mine off. Two
second returns to Edinburgh, young man, and I'll thank ye to look slippy
over it."
In the Edinburgh train he could scarcely refrain from laughing. And
Helen, too, seemed more in a humour to accept the disappearance of five
invaluable trunks, full of preciosities, as a facetious sally on the
part of destiny.
He drew out a note-book which he always carried, and did mathematical
calculations.
"That makes twenty-seven pounds eighteen and ninepence as ye owe me," he
remarked.
"What? For railway tickets?"
"Railway tickets, tips, and that twenty-five pounds I lent ye. I'm
making ye a present o' _my_ fares, and dinner, and tea and so forth."
"Twenty-five pounds that you lent me!" she murmured.
"Yes," he said. "Tuesday morning, while I was at my cashbox."
"Oh, _that_!" she ejaculated. "I thought you were giving me that. I
never thought you'd ask me for it again, uncle. I'd completely forgotten
all about it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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