II
THE "PERSONALLY CONDUCTED"

In view of the certain proximity of Miss Gertrude Vennor, Brockway wanted nothing so much as a quiet opportunity to think his mind clear in the matter of his love-affair, but time and place were both denied him. Lying in wait for him at the very door of the Tadmor was a thin old gentleman, with hock-bottle shoulders and penthoused eyes. His voice was high-pitched and rasping; and his speech was petulance grown old and unreasoning.

"Mr. ah – Brockway, I protest! Do you consider it fair to us, your patrons, to absent yourself for the ah – better part of the morning? Here I've been waiting for you more than an hour, sir, and – "

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jordan; I'm sorry," Brockway cut in. "What can I do for you?"

"You can attend to your ah – business a little closer, for one thing, Mr. ah – Brockway," quavered the aggrieved one, taking a yard-long coupon ticket from his breast-pocket; "and for another, you can give me the sixty days going limit on this ticket that I ah – stipulated for when I bought it, sir."

Brockway glanced at the ticket and called attention to the conditions in the contract. "The going limit of thirty days is plainly stated here, Mr. Jordan. Didn't you read the contract before signing it?"

"Don't make any difference, sir; I ah – stipulated for sixty days, and I require you to make the stipulation ah – good, sir."

"But, my dear sir, I can't. No representative of any one of the lines interested is authorized to change these conditions."

"Very well, sir; v-e-r-y well." The irascible one folded the ticket with tremulous fingers and sought to replace it in his pocket-book. "I shall know what road to ah – patronize next time, and it won't be yours, Mr. ah – Brockway; you may depend upon that, sir."

The passenger agent's forte was placability. "Don't worry about your ticket, Mr. Jordan," he said. "We'll take good care of you, and if you should happen to be more than thirty days in reaching Los Angeles – "

"Thirty days!" gasped the objector. "Great ah – heavens, sir, you told us you could put us there in ah – four days and a half!"

"So I did, and so we shall, barring the stop-overs the party may wish to make; but in that case I don't see why you should require a sixty-day limit," said Brockway, with an affable smile.

By this time quite a little group had gathered around them, and anxious queries began to beat thick and fast upon Brockway's ears.

"What's that about our tickets?"

"Thirty days, did you say?"

"Can't have stop-overs?"

Brockway got upon his feet. "One moment, if you please," he protested. "There is nothing wrong – nothing different. Mr. Jordan and I were merely discussing the question of an extra limit on his own ticket; that was all."

"Oh."

"Ah."

"Where do we get dinner?"

"What time do we reach Denver?"

"Is there a dining-car on this train?"

Brockway answered the inquiries in sequence, and when the norm of quiet was restored, a soft-spoken little gentleman in a grass-cloth duster and a velvet skull-cap drew him away to the smoking-compartment.

"Let's go and smoke," he said; and Brockway went willingly, inasmuch as the little gentleman with the womanish face and the ready cigar-case was the only person in the party who seemed to be capable of travelling without a guardian.

"Worry the life out of you, don't they, my boy," said the comforter, when his cigar was alight.

"Oh, no; I'm well used to it."

"I presume you are, in a way. Still, some of the complaints are so ridiculous. I suppose you've heard the latest?"

"Nothing later than Mr. Jordan's demand for sixty days in which to complete a week's journey."

"Oh, it isn't that; that's an individual grievance. The other involves the entire party. Of course, you are aware that the Tadmor is no longer the rear car in the train?"

"Oh, Lord! are they going to fight about that?"

"Unquestionably. Didn't you promise some of them that this particular chariot should be at the tail-end of the trans-continental procession?"

"No. It was merely an answer to a question. I said that extra cars were usually put on behind. Are they going to demand it as a right?"

"Yes; I believe the deputation is waiting for you now."

"Heavens – what a lot of cranks!" said Brockway, despairingly. "The thing can't be done, but I may as well go and fight it out."

The deputation was in section six, and one of the committee rose and gave him a seat.

"There is a little matter we should like to have adjusted," began the courteous one; but Brockway interrupted.

"Mr. Somers was just telling me about it. I hope you are not going to insist – "

There were two elderly ladies on the committee, and they protested as one person.

"Now, Mr. Brockway! You know we made it a positive condition – so we could go out on the platform and see the scenery."

"But, my dear madam, let me explain – "

"There is nothing to explain; it was an explicit promise, and we insist on its fulfilment."

"Just one word," Brockway pleaded. "The car behind us is our General Manager's private car, lent to President Vennor, of the Colorado and Utah. If we should put it ahead of this, Mr. Vennor's party would be continually disturbed by the passengers and train-men going back and forth. Don't you see – "

The fourth member of the deputation put in his word at this.

"How long has it been since the railway companies began to put the convenience of their guests before the rights of their patrons, Mr. Brockway? Answer me that, if you please."

"I should like to know!" declared one of the ladies. "We have paid for our accommodations."

The courteous one summed up the matter in set phrase.

"It's no use, Mr. Brockway, as you see. If you don't carry out your part of the agreement, I'm afraid we shall have to telegraph to your superiors."

For a moment Brockway was tempted to answer four fools according to their folly. Then he bethought him that he had but now been seeking a pretext which would open the door of the private car. Here was a makeshift; a poor one, to be sure, but better than none. Wherefore, instead of quarrelling with the deputation, he rose with placatory phrases in his mouth.

"Very well; I'll see what can be done. But you must give me a little time; the scenery – " pointing to the monotonous landscape circling slowly with the onward sweep of the train – "is not exactly of the rear-platform variety yet."

After which he retreated to the rear vestibule of the Tadmor and stood looking out through the glass panel in the door at the hamper-laden front platform of the Naught-fifty, trying to muster courage to take the chilling plunge. For he knew that the year agone episode was not altogether pleasing to the father of Miss Gertrude Vennor.

III
THE PRIVATE CAR

"Yes, sah; mighty sorry, sah; but we cayn't cook you-all's dinner, no-how, sah. Wateh-pipe's done bu'sted in de range."

President Vennor turned and regarded the big-bodied cook of the Naught-fifty with the eye-sweep of appraisal which Mrs. Burton had found so annoying.

"No dinner, you say? That's bad. Why did you burst the pipe?"

"I – I didn't bu'sted it, sah; hit des bu'sted hitse'f – 'deed it did, sah!"

"Well, can't you serve us a cold lunch?"

"Might do dat – yes, sah; ef dat'll do."

"What is that, papa; no luncheon to-day?" asked a young woman, coming down the compartment to stand beside the President's chair.

There was a family resemblance, but in the daughter the magic of femineity had softened the severer characteristics until they became winsome and good to look upon. The cool gray eyes of the father were Gertrude's inheritance, also; but in the eyes of the daughter the calculating stare became the steady gaze of clean-hearted guilelessness; and in her even-tinted complexion there was only a suggestion of the sallow olive of the father's clean-shaven face. For face and figure, Gertrude owed much to birth and breeding, and it was small wonder that Frederick Brockway had lost his heart to her in time-honored and romantic fashion.

The President answered his daughter's query without taking his eyes from the big-bodied cook.

"No; there is something the matter with the range. Ask the others if they would prefer a cold luncheon in the car to the table d'hôte at the dinner station."

Gertrude went to the other end of the compartment and stated the case to Mrs. Dunham, the chaperon of the party; to Priscilla and Hannah Beaswicke, two young women of the Annex; to Chester Fleetwell, A.B., Harvard, by the skin of his teeth, but the ablest oarsman of his class by a very safe majority; and to Mr. Harold Quatremain, the President's secretary.

The dinner station carried it unanimously, and Gertrude announced the vote.

"We're all agreed upon the table d'hôte," she said; and the Falstaffian negro shook himself free and backed into the vestibule. "What is its name? and when do we arrive?"

"I'll have to inquire," Mr. Vennor replied. "I'll go forward and have the conductor wire ahead for a separate table."

But Gertrude said: "Please don't; let's go with the crowd for once. I'm so tired of being always specialized."

The President's smile was suggestive of the metallic smirk on the face of a George-the-Fourth penny. "Just as you please," he rejoined; "but I'll go and find out when and where."

Now it chanced that at this precise moment Brockway had laid his hand on the Tadmor's door-knob preparatory to taking the plunge; and when he opened the door he found himself face to face with the President. Whereupon he fell back and lost the power of speech, while the incomer appraised him with his eyes and tried to remember where he had seen him before. Recognition brought with it a small frown of annoyance.

"Your name is Brockway, I believe," the President said.

"Ye-yes," Brockway stammered, being by no means so sure of it at the moment.

"H-m; and, if I remember correctly, you are an employee of this line?"

"I am." The passenger agent was beginning a little to recover his scattered store of self-possession.

"Very good. Possibly you can tell me what I want to know. What is the dinner station, and when do we reach it?"

"Moreno – twelve-ten. Shall I wire ahead for a private table?" Brockway asked, eager to preface his unwelcome purpose with some small token of service.

"By no means; we are no better than the patrons of your company. What is good enough for them ought to suffice for us."

"Of course, if you don't wish it," Brockway began; and then the plunge: "I am in charge of the excursionists in this car, and they want it placed behind yours. If you will kindly consent to humor their whim – " He stopped in deference to the frown of displeasure which was gradually overspreading the President's brow.

"And so make our private car a thoroughfare for everybody," said he, indignantly; then, with a sudden turn which confused Brockway until he saw its drift, "But you are quite right; the patrons of your company should always be considered first. We are only guests. By all means, make the change at the first opportunity."

"Please don't misunderstand me," Brockway said, courageously. "I didn't propose it. If you object, just say so, and I'll see them all hanged first."

The President shook his head reprovingly, and Brockway fancied he could feel the cold gray eyes pinning him against the partition.

"Certainly not; I am afraid you don't sufficiently consider your duty to your employers. I not only authorize the change – I desire it. I shall request it if you do not."

Brockway winced under the patronizing tone, but he was determined not to let pride stand in the way of better things. So he said, "Thank you for helping me out. I'll have the change made at the dinner station, and we'll try not to annoy you any more than we can help."

That ended it, and he was no nearer the penetralia of car Naught-fifty than before. Mr. Vennor turned to go, but at the door he bethought him of the crippled range.

"A water-pipe has burst in our kitchen range," said he. "Can we get it repaired this side of Denver?"

Brockway considered it for a moment. Back of his passenger department service there was an apprenticeship in mechanics, and he was weighing the scanty furnishings of the engineer's tool-box against the probable askings of the undertaking. It was a chance to show his good-will, and he concluded to risk it.

"Hardly. We don't stop long enough at the division station. Is it a very bad break?"

"Indeed, I know nothing about it. The cook tells me he can't use the range."

"May I go in and look at it?" Brockway asked.

Now President Vennor, upon recognizing Gertrude's acquaintance of the previous summer, had determined to prevent a renewal of the intimacy at whatever cost; but he abhorred tables d'hôte and railway eating-stations, and was willing to make some concessions to avoid them. So he gave the coveted permission, and a minute later they were in the kitchen of the private car, inspecting the disabled range.

"It isn't as bad as it might be," Brockway announced, finally. "I think I can stop the leak with what tools I can find in the engineer's box."

"You?"

"Yes; I'm a machinist by trade, you know. I earned my living at it awhile, before I went into the passenger department." Brockway found a certain measure of satisfaction in running counter to the presumed anti-craftsman prejudice of the man of inherited wealth.

"I'm sure it is very good of you to offer, but I couldn't think of troubling you," the President said, sparring to gain time in which to perfect a little plan which had just suggested itself.

"Oh, it's no trouble; I shall be glad enough to help you out."

"Very well, then – if you wish to try. I will make it worth your while."

Brockway straightened up and met the appraising eyes unflinchingly.

"Excuse me, Mr. Vennor, but you've mistaken your man this time," he said, steadily. "I'll gladly do it as a kindness – not otherwise."

The President smiled. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Brockway," he apologized, with the faintest possible emphasis on the prefix; "we shall be most grateful if you will come to our rescue upon your own terms. I presume you won't have time before noon?"

"N – no," said Brockway, glancing at his watch and generously burying his pique with the provocation; "but I'll attack it as soon as we leave Moreno. It won't take long."

Mr. Vennor bowed, and saw his newly pledged servitor safely out upon the hamper-laden platform. He cherished a little theory of his own respecting the discouraging of youthful and sentimental intimacies, and it was based upon conditions which Brockway's proposed undertaking might easily fulfil. Gertrude had been distinctly pleased with the young man the preceding summer. Other things had happened since, and, fortunately, Fleetwell was along to look after his own interests. None the less, it might be well for them to meet under conditions which would make it impossible for the passenger agent to pose as Gertrude's social equal. Accordingly, the President sought out the porter and gave him his instructions.

"William, that young man will come in this afternoon to repair the range. When he is well at work, I want you to come and tell me."