At which he laughed and kissed her, and was off to take the night
train for Mercer, which made it possible for him to catch the morning
stage for Old Chester.
There was one other passenger in the stage--a little boy with a soft
thatch of straight, yellow hair that had been chopped short around the
bowl of some domestic barber. He sat on the opposite seat and held a
bundle in his arms, peering out over the top of it with serious blue
eyes.
"Well, young man, where are you bound?" inquired Mr. Pryor. When the
child said "Old Chester," Lloyd Pryor tossed a quarter out of the
window to a hostler and bade him go into the stage-house and buy an
apple. "Here, youngster," he said, when the man handed it up to him,
"take that.--Keep the change, my man."
When it did not involve any personal inconvenience, Mr. Lloyd Pryor
had a quick and cordial kindliness which most people found very
attractive. The child, however, did not seem much impressed; he took
the apple gravely, and said, "Thank you, sir;" but he was not
effusive. He looked out of the window and hugged his bundle. Half-way
to Old Chester he began to nibble the apple, biting it very slowly, so
that he might not make a noise, and thrusting it back into his pocket
after each bite with an apprehensive glance at the gentleman in the
corner. When he had finished it and swallowed the core, he said,
suddenly: "Mister, have you any little boys and girls?"
His companion, who had quite forgotten him, looked over the top of his
newspaper with a start. "What? What did you say? Oh--boys and girls?
Yes; I have a girl." He smiled as he spoke.
"Is she as big as me?"
Lloyd Pryor put down his paper and twitched his glasses off. "About
twice as big I should think," he said kindly.
"Twice as big! And twice as old?"
"How old are you?"
"I'm seven, going on eight."
"Well, then, let's see. Alice is--she is twice and five years more as
old. What do you make of that?"
The child began to count on his fingers, and, after looking at him a
minute or two with some amusement, Mr. Pryor returned to his paper.
After a while the boy said, suddenly, "In the flood the ducks couldn't
be drowned, could they?"
But Lloyd Pryor had become interested in what he was reading. "You
talk too much, young man," he said coldly, and there was no further
conversation. The old stage jogged along in the uncertain sunshine;
sometimes Mr. Pryor smoked, once he took a nap. While he slept the
little boy looked at him furtively, but by and by he turned to the
window, absorbed in his own affairs.