little semi-quaver that tells the trained traveller that the man
up ahead is moving the mile-posts, at least one every minute. At the
first stop, twenty-five miles out, the fat drummer snapped his watch
again, but he did not say, "Huh." We had made up five minutes.

A few passengers swung down here, and a few others swung up; and off we
dashed, drilling the darkness. I looked in on the lawyer again, for I
would have speech with him; but he was still sleeping the sleep of the
virtuous, with the electric light full on his upturned baby face, that
reminds me constantly of the late Tom Reed.

A woman I know was putting one of her babies to bed in lower 2, when we
wiggled through a reverse curve that was like shooting White Horse
Rapids in a Peterboro. The child intended for lower 2 went over into 4.
"Never mind," said its mother, "we have enough to go around;" and so she
left that one in 4 and put the next one in 2, and so on.

At the next stop where you "Y" and back into the town, the people,
impatient, were lined up, ready to board the Limited. When we swung over
the switches again, we were only ten minutes late.

As often as the daring driver eased off for a down grade I could hear
the hiss of steam through the safety-valve above the back of the black
flier, and I could feel the flanges against the ball of the rail, and
the little tell-tale semi-quaver of the car.

By now the babies were all abed; and from bunk to bunk she tucked them
in, kissed them good-night, and then cuddled down beside the last one, a
fair-haired girl who seemed to have caught and kept, in her hair and in
her eyes, the sunshine of the three short summers through which she had
passed.

Once more I went and stood by the lounge where the lawyer lay, but I had
not the nerve to wake him.

The silver moon rose and lit the ripples on the lake that lay below my
window as the last of the diners came from the cafe car. Along the shore
of the sleeping lake our engine swept like a great, black, wingless bird
of night. Presently I felt the frogs of South Parkdale; and when, from
her hot throat she called "Toronto," the fat and fretful traveller
opened his great gold watch. He did not snap it now, but looked into its
open face and almost smiled; for we were touching Toronto on the tick of
time.

I stepped from the car, for I was interested in the fat drummer. I
wanted to see him meet her, and hold her hand, and tell her what a
really, truly, good husband