his son,
Johnny Armstrong opened the coach door, thrust the lad in, and was about
to follow himself, when he discovered that he had forgotten his watch.
On making this discovery, he banged too the coach door without saying a
word, and hurried home as fast as his little, thick, short legs would
allow him, to recover his time-piece. On his return, which was in less
than five minutes, Johnny himself stepped into the vehicle, which was
now crowded with passengers, and, in a few seconds, was rattling away at
a rapid rate towards Edinburgh. The night was pitch dark, not a star
twinkled; and it was not until Johnny arrived at his journey's end--that
is, at Edinburgh--that he discovered his son was not in the coach, and
had never been there at all. We will not attempt to describe Johnny's
amazement and distress of mind on making this most extraordinary and
most alarming discovery. They were dreadful. In great agitation, he
inquired at every one of the passengers if they had not seen his son,
and one and all denied they ever had. The thing was mysterious and
perfectly inexplicable.

"I put the boy into the coach with my own hands," said Johnny Armstrong,
in great perturbation, to the guard and half crying as he spoke.

"Very odd," said the guard.

"Very odd, indeed," said Johnny.

"Are you sure it was _our_ coach, Mr. Armstrong?" inquired the guard.

The emphasis on the word _our_ was startling. It evidently meant more
than met the ear; and Johnny felt that it did so, and he was startled
accordingly.

"_Your_ coach?" he replied, but now with some hesitation of manner. "It
surely was. What other coach could it be?"

"Why, it may have been the Glasgow coach," said the guard; "and I rather
think it _must_ have been. You have made a mistake, sir, be assured, and
put the boy into the wrong coach. We start from the same place, and at
the same hour, five minutes or so in or over."

The mention of this possibility, nay certainty--for Johnny had actually
dispatched the boy to Glasgow--instantly struck him dumb. It relieved
him, indeed, from the misery arising from a dread of some terrible
accident having happened the lad, but threw him into great tribulation
as to his fate in Glasgow, without money or friends. But this being,
after all, comparatively but a small affair, Johnny was now, what he had
not been before, able to pay attention to minor things.

"Be sae guid," said Johnny to the guard, who was on the top of the
coach,