On the third day a despatch came from Frederic Cullen telling his
father he would join us at Lamy on No. 3 that evening. I at once
ordered 97 and 218 coupled to the connecting train, and in an
hour we were back on the main line. While waiting for the
overland to arrive, Mr. Cullen asked me to do something which, as
it later proved to have considerable bearing on the events of
that night, is worth mentioning, trivial as it seems. When I had
first joined the party, I had given orders for 97 to be kicked in
between the main string and their special, so as not to deprive
the occupants of 218 of the view from their observation saloon
and balcony platform. Mr. Cullen came to me now and asked me to
reverse the arrangement and make my car the tail end. I was
giving orders for the splitting and kicking in when No. 3
arrived, and thus did not see the greeting of Frederic Cullen and
his family. When I joined them, his father told me that the high
altitude had knocked his son up so, that he had to be helped from
the ordinary sleeper to the special and had gone to bed
immediately. Out West we have to know something of medicine, and
my car had its chest of drugs: so I took some tablets and went
into his state-room. Frederic was like his brother in appearance,
though not in manner, having a quick, alert way. He was breathing
with such difficulty that I was almost tempted to give him
nitroglycerin, instead of strychnine, but he said he would be all
right as soon as he became accustomed to the rarefied air, quite
pooh-poohing my suggestion that he take No. 2 back to Trinidad;
and while I was still urging, the train started. Leaving him the
vials of digitalis and strychnine, therefore, I went back, and
dined _solus_ on my own car, indulging at the end in a cigar,
the smoke of which would keep turning into pictures of Miss
Cullen. I have thought about those pictures since then, and have
concluded that when cigar-smoke behaves like that, a man might as
well read his destiny in it, for it can mean only one thing.
After enjoying the combination, I went to No. 218 to have a look
at the son, and found that the heart tonics had benefited him
considerably. On leaving him, I went to the dining-room, where
the rest of the party were still at dinner, to ask that the
invalid have a strong cup of coffee, and after delivering my
request Mr. Cullen asked me to join them in a cigar. This I did
gladly, for a cigar and Miss Cullen's society were even
pleasanter than a cigar and Miss Cullen's pictures, because the
pictures never quite did her justice, and, besides, didn't talk.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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