But how to reach Bains? He took out his little pocketbook and blessed his luck star that the ten-dollar gold piece given to him on his birthday was there safe and sound. He had never got himself to break it. Daily he had inspected his purse to see if it was there and to feast his eyes on the sight of it and gratefully polish it with his handkerchief until it shone like a tiny sun. But would the ten dollars be enough? He had travelled by train many a time without thinking that one had to pay, and still less how much one paid, whether ten or a hundred dollars. For the first time he got an inkling that there were facts in life upon which he had never reflected, and that all the many things that surrounded him and he had held in his hands and toyed with somehow contained a value of their own, a special importance. An hour before he had thought he knew everything. Now he realized he had passed by a thousand mysteries and problems without noticing them, and was ashamed that his poor little wisdom had stumbled over the first step it took into life. He grew more and more discouraged, and his footsteps lagged as he drew near the station. How often he had dreamed of this flight from home, of making a dash for the great Life, becoming king or emperor, soldier or poet! And now he looked timidly at the bright little building ahead of him and thought of nothing but whether his ten dollars would bring him to his grandmother at Bains. The rails stretched away monotonously into the country, the station was deserted. Edgar went to the window shyly and asked, whispering so that nobody but the ticket-seller should hear, how much a ticket to Bains cost. Amused and rather astonished eyes behind spectacles smiled upon the timid child. "Whole fare or half fare?" "Whole fare," stammered Edgar, utterly without pride. "Three dollars and thirty-five cents." "Give me a ticket, please." In great relief Edgar shoved the beloved bit of polished gold under the grating, change rattled on the ledge, and Edgar all at once felt immensely wealthy holding the strip of colored paper that guaranteed him his liberty, and with the sound of coin clinking in his pocket. On examining the timetable he found there would be a train in only twenty minutes, and he retired to a corner, to get away from the few people idling on the platform. Though it was evident they were harboring no suspicions, the child, as if his flight and his crime were branded on his forehead, felt that they were looking at nothing but him and were wondering why a mere boy such as he should be travelling alone. He drew a great sigh of relief when at last the first whistle sounded in the distance, and the rumbling came closer and closer, and the train that was to carry him out into the great world puffed and snorted into the station.