e door, leaped in and sat down
opposite Emma Lee! The iron horse gave two sharp responsive whistles,
and sent forth one mighty puff. The train moved, but not with a jerk;
it is only clumsy drivers who jerk trains; sometimes pulling them up too
soon, and having to make a needless plunge forward again, or overrunning
their stopping points and having to check abruptly, so as to cause in
timorous minds the impression that an accident has happened. In fact
much more of one's comfort than is generally known depends upon one's
driver being a good one. John Marrot was known to the regular
travellers on the line as a first-rate driver, and some of them even
took an interest in ascertaining that he was on the engine when they
were about to go on a journey. It may be truly said of John that he
never "started" his engine at all. He merely as it were insinuated the
idea of motion to his iron steed, and so glided softly away.

Just as the train moved, the late passenger thrust head and shoulders
out of the window, waved his arms, glared abroad, and shouted, or rather
spluttered--

"My b-b-bundle!--wraps!--rug!--lost!"

A smart burly man, with acute features, stepped on the footboard of the
carriage, and, moving with the train, asked what sort of rug it was.

"Eh! a b-b-blue one, wi-wi--"

"With," interrupted the man, "black outside and noo straps?"

"Ye-ye-yes--yes!"

"All right, sir, you shall have it at the next station," said the
acute-faced man, stepping on the platform and allowing the train to
pass. As the guard's van came up he leaped after the magnificent guard
into his private apartment and shut the door.

"Hallo! Davy Blunt, somethin' up?" asked the guard.

"Yes, Joe Turner, there _is_ somethin' up," replied the acute man,
leaning against the brake-wheel. "You saw that tall good-lookin' feller
wi' the eyeglass and light whiskers?"

"I did. Seemed to me as if his wits had gone on wi' the last train, an'
he didn't know how to overtake 'em."

"I don't know about his wits," said Blunt, "but it seems to me that he's
gone on in _this_ train with somebody else's luggage."

The guard whistled--not professionally, but orally.

"You don't say so?"

The acute man nodded, and, leaning his elbows on the window-sill, gazed
at the prospect contemplatively.

In a few minutes the 6:30 p.m. train was flying across country at the
rate of thirty-five or forty miles an hour.

CHAPTER FOUR.

A DOUBLE DILEMMA A