tion>Robert Barr
The Speculations of Jack Steele
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066426774
Table of Contents
VI.—THE RICHEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD.
I.—THE STATION-MASTER.
THE STATION-MASTER said nonchalantly that he had nothing to do with it, and from out the telegraph-office he brought a stout, wooden chair which he set down in the dark strip of shade which ran along the pine platform under the eaves of the station. The back of this chair being tilted against the building, the station-master sat down in it, put his heels on the wooden round, took from his pocket a jack-knife, and began to whittle a stick, an occupation which the momentary pausing of the express seemed to have interrupted. There was nothing of the glass of fashion or the mould of form about the station-master. He was dressed in weather-worn trousers, held to his thin frame by a pair of suspenders quite evidently home-made, which came over his shoulders, and underneath this was a coarse, woollen shirt, open at the throat because the button had gone. On top of all this was a three-year-old, dilapidated straw hat which had once possessed a wide brim, but was now in a state of disrepair in thorough keeping with the costume. Yet in spite of appearances he was a capable young man who could work a telegraphic machine at reasonable speed, was well up in the business pertaining to Slocum Junction, and had definite opinions regarding the manner in which the affairs of the nation should be carried on. Indeed, at that moment he was an exemplification of the independence for which his country had fought and bled. No one knew better than he that the Greased Lightning Express would never have halted for an instant at Slocum Junction unless it did so to put off a person of some importance. But that important person had begun to give his opinion of the locality in language that was painful and free, the moment he realised the situation, and the station-master signified his resentment by sitting down in the chair and assuming a careless attitude, which told the stranger plainer than words that he could go to the devil if he wished. For all he knew, the obstreperous person who had stepped from the express might be his chief, but the station-master made no concession to that possibility.
Opposite him in the blazing sunlight stood a dapper young man grasping a neat hand-bag. He might have posed as a tailor's model, and he offered a striking contrast to the unkempt station-master. He cast an almost despairing look at the vanishing express, now a mere dot in the horizon, with a trail of smoke, as if it were a comet that had run aground. Then he turned an exasperated face upon the complacent station-master.
"You are not responsible for the situation, eh? You don't seem to care much, either."
"Well, to tell the truth, stranger, I don't."
"You mean to tell me there's no train for two hours and a half on the branch line?"
"I never said anything of the sort, because there isn't any branch line."
"No branch line? Why, there it is before my eyes! There's a locomotive, of a kind, and a composite passenger and freight-car that evidently dates from the time of the Deluge. Noah used that car!" cried the angry stranger.
"Well, if Noah was here, he wouldn't use it for two hours and a half," said the station-master complacently.
"I don't understand what you mean," protested the stranger. "Is there, or is there not, a train in two hours and a half?"
"Of course there is."
"You said a minute ago there wasn't."
"I didn't say anything of the kind; and if you weren't adding your own natural heat to the unnatural heat of the day, you'd learn something. You were talking about branch lines; I said there is no branch line. That's all."
"Then what's the meaning of those two lines of rust running to the right?"
"There's five or six thousand people," droned the station-master, "who'd like to know what that object you're referring to really is. Leastways, they used to want to know, but lately they've given up all curiosity on the subject. They're the shareholders, who put up good money to have that road made. We call it the Farmers' Road, and it isn't a branch, but as independent as the main line."
"Or as yourself," hazarded the young man.
"Well, it's independent, anyhow," continued the station-master, "and I've nothing to do with it."
"Haven't the cursed fools who own it the sense to make it connect with anything on the main line?"
"Of course, we're all fools unless we come from Chicago," said the station-master imperturbably.
"I didn't say that," commented the stranger.
"No, I did. If your dome of thought was in working order, I shouldn't need to explain these things; but as I've nothing particular to do, I may as well teach a man from Chicago his A B C. You stepped off the express just now owning the whole country, populated with fools, according to you. I've been station-master here for eighteen months, and I never saw that express stop before. Now, I'm not such a fool, but I know that a man who steps off the Greased Lightning is one of two things. He is either a big bug with pull enough on the railway company to get them to stop the Greased Lightning for him, or else he's a tramp who can't pay his fare, and so is put off."
"Oh, you've sized me up, have you? Well, which am I? The millionaire or the tramp?"
"When you stepped off, I thought you were the millionaire; but the moment you opened your mouth,. I knew you were the tramp."
Jack Steele laughed with very good-natured heartiness.
"Say, old man, that's all right. The drinks are on me, if there was a tavern near, which there doesn't seem to be. I suppose there's no place in this forsaken hole where on a hot day like this a man can get a cooling drink?"
"Stranger, you're continually jumping at conclusions and landing at the wrong spot. Allow me to tell you"—here he lowered his voice a bit—"that you don't raise no blush to my cheeks by
