ut of bed with unusual
alacrity and prepared to catch the eight o'clock express.

"It may mean a 'bird's-eye,'" I remarked, as I bolted my breakfast.

"You can make the suggestion," returned Mac, passing me half a grape
fruit. "There's no need to introduce either mosquitoes or ice-floes into
a 'bird's-eye.'" This in reference to New Yorkers' objections to Staten
Island.

"I shan't mention them in the booklet unless they specially ask me to,"
I said with a grin. We are always facetious when a new job comes up. I
should not be surprised if the immortals were much the same.

Catching the eight o'clock express is with us rather a legend than a
solid fact, in spite of our vaunted breakfast at half after seven. One
has to shave, collect the necessary papers, put on one's boots, pocket
tobacco and matches, run upstairs for a fresh handkerchief, things that
somehow or other take time. As a rule we find ourselves halfway to the
station, running breathlessly, only to find that we have two left-hand
gloves, or that some vitally important document has been left behind.
The seasoned commuter, by long and arduous practice, eliminates these
errors; but we, who go to New York but once in a week or so, are
unskilled in early morning hustles, and generally see the tail-end of
the express disappearing in the cutting. This morning, however, I
managed to get out of the house by three minutes to eight, sufficient
time for an athlete to do the half-mile to the station. With a silent
prayer that the train might be a few minutes overdue I raced across the
lot and down Pine Street.

I saw, as I hurried down the straight incline of Walnut Avenue, that I
was in time, and slackened my pace to a walk. The morning, as I had
expected, was clear and cold; a sharp frost had glazed the puddles in
the roadway, and on the uplands of the further bank of the Pasayack
River light patches of snow lay among the trees. The sun shone
gloriously in a blue sky, and a keen wind blew the leaves into swirling
eddies about the stoops of the houses. At the bottom of the hill was the
station, a small low-roofed structure of wood. Some score of commuters
were clustered about it, and I perceived, seated sedately upon a
hand-truck, his feet crossed, his corn-cob drawing serenely, and his
brown-gloved hands holding a copy of the _New York Daily News_, none
other than Mr. Carville.

He raised his hand in salute as I came up. I hurried into the office to
buy a ticket, a