One thing sure, those auto thieves weren't on our train; they didn't get on at any of those three places, Ozone Valley or Ridgeboro or Skiddyunk. The two sheriffs got off at Skiddyunk again, to keep a watch when the late train came through. The Skiddyunk Station was all dark. As we left it the wheels kept saying, "s'long, s'long," and pretty soon we couldn't see it at all, and I knew that the country where we had had so much fun was way back there in the dark and that probably we'd never see it any more. That was a single-track railroad and as we stood on the back platform, we could see the two shiny rails going away back into the dark. "Let's go and sit down," I said; "I'm tired." We had a shoe box full of eats that the girls at _Camp Smile Awhile_ had given us and, yum, yum, those sandwiches were good. Pretty soon a brakeman came staggering through, holding onto the seats. He had a red lantern and he hung it on the back platform. "So's the flyer won't bunk her nose into us," he said. "Reg'lar private car, you kids got," he said. I said, "When do you think we'll get to Bridgeboro, New Jersey?" "Depends on the out trains from New York," he said; "we get in about three. No telling how long you'll stand in the yards. If you're picked up pretty quick, you ought to be home in time for breakfast. But there's no telling with a dead special." I said, "You don't call this car a dead one, do you? You ought to have seen the adventures it had." He laughed and said, "A dead special is a pickup. It ain't carried straight through. It's picked up and laid down and picked up. See?" "We should worry when we get home," I said. "You'll get there," he said, nice and pleasant; "don't you worry." "Worry?" Connie said. "That must be a Greek word; I never heard it." He was an awful nice fellow, that brakeman. Pretty soon we were all sprawling on the seats, started on our favorite indoor sport, jollying Pee-wee. The train went through a pretty wild country and sometimes we could look way down into deep valleys, and sometimes mountains went right up straight from the tracks and seemed like walls outside the windows. Wig said, "To-morrow is Columbus Day." "Right the first time," I told him; "I wish we weren't going to get home 'till Tuesday." "What's the difference between Tuesday?" Connie wanted to know. "Is it a conundrum?" I said. "No, it's an adverb, I mean a proverb," he said. "Tuesday and _what_?" Pee-wee shouted. "Tuesday and nothing," Connie said; "just Tuesday. Ask me the answer to it." "You're crazy," Pee-wee shouted; "what's the answer to it?" Connie said, "There isn't any answer. Want to hear another? How many onions are there?" "Where?" Pee-wee yelled. "Anywhere," Connie said. "That shows how much sense you have," the kid screamed. I laughed so hard I nearly fell off the seat. "What's the cause of tears?" Connie said right back at him. "What?" Pee-wee asked him. "Crying," Connie said. "Why is the sky blue?"