Detective and mystery stories; Stone, Fleming (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
New England’s small railroad stations are much alike, the crowds that
alight from the trains are much alike, the people waiting on the platform
for the arriving travelers are much alike, but there came into Corinth
one night a passenger who was not at all like the fellow passengers on
that belated train. It was a train from New York, due in Corinth at
five-forty, but owing to the extreme cold weather, and various untoward
freezings occasioned thereby, the delays were many and long and the train
drew into the station shortly after seven o’clock.
Tired, hungry and impatient, the travelers crowded out of the train and
stamped through the snow to the vehicles awaiting them, or footed it to
their nearby homes.
The passenger who was unlike the others stepped down from the car
platform, and holding her small suitcase firmly, crossed the track and
entered the station waiting room. She went to the ticket window but found
there no attendant. Impatiently she tapped her little foot on the old
board floor but no one appeared.
“Agent,” she called out, rapping with her knuckles on the window shelf,
“Agent,—where are you?”
“Who’s there? What d’y’ want?” growled a surly voice, and a head appeared
at the ticket window.
“I want somebody to look after me! I’m alone, and I want a porter, and I
want a conveyance and I want some information.”
“Oh, you do! Well, I can’t supply porters nor yet conveyances; but
information I may be able to give you.”
“Very well then,” and a pair of big, dark eyes seemed to pierce his very
brain. “Then tell me where I can find the best accommodations in
Corinth.”
The now roused agent looked more interestedly at the inquirer.
He saw a mere slip of a girl, young, slender, and very alert of manner.
Her dark, grave little face was oval, and her eyes had a strange uncanny
way of roving quickly about, and coming suddenly back, greatly
disconcerting the stolid ticket agent.
This agent was not unused to girls,—a college town is often invaded by
hordes of smart young women, pretty girls and gay hoydens. Many Junes he
had sold tickets or given information to hundreds of feminine inquirers
but none had ever seemed quite like this one.
“Best accommodations?” he repeated stupidly.
“You heard me, then! About when do you propose to reply?”
Still he gazed at her in silence, running over in his mind the various
boarding houses, and finding none he thought she’d like.
“There’s a rule of the Railroad Company that questions must be answered
the same day they’re asked,” she said, witheringly, and picking up her
suitcase she started for the door, feeling that any one she might find
would know more than this dummy.
“Wait,—oh, I say, miss, wait a minute.”
“I did,” she said coolly, proceeding to the door.
“But,—oh, hold on,—try Old Salt Adams,—you couldn’t do better.”
“Where is it?” she deigned to pause a moment, and he replied quickly:
“He’s right outside,—hurry up out,—you can catch him!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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