Читать книгу Hervey Willetts - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 6

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Hervey did not wait to hear the visiting traveler and naturalist. He took the noon train from Catskill and at Albany caught a train east which took him to Farrelton, the small New England city where he lived.

He did not waste the precious hours en route. Evading an all-seeing conductor, he sought the forbidden platform of the car and made acquaintance with a trainman who reluctantly permitted him to remain outside. He asked the trainman to “sneak” him into the locomotive and when told that this was impossible, he suggested overcoming the difficulty by matching pennies to determine whether the rule might not be broken. The trainman was immovable, but he relaxed enough to permit himself to hobnob with this restless young free lance on the flying platform.

“I bet you can’t walk through the car without touching the seats while the train is going around a turn,” Hervey challenged. “Bet you three cigar coupons.”

The trainman declining to essay this stunt, Hervey attempted it himself while the train was sweeping around a curve which skirted the foot of one of the beautiful Berkshire mountains. He succeeded so well that about midway of the car he went sprawling into the lap of a bespectacled young man who seemed greatly ruffled by this sudden avalanche.

Hervey rolled around into the seat beside the stranger and said, “That’s mighty hard to do, do you know it? Keep your eye out for another hill with a curve around it and I’ll do it, you see. Leave it to me.”

“You came very near not leaving anything to me,” said the young man, picking up his spectacles and gathering the grip and bundles that Hervey’s precipitate arrival had scattered on the floor.

“I went kerflop, hey?”

“You certainly did,” said the young man.

Since Hervey was in the seat he remained there a few minutes. “Oh, bambino, you’re a lucky guy!” he said, noticing the pasters on the stranger’s suitcase. “That’s where I’m going all right.” This was true only in the sense that Hervey intended to go everywhere. He had never planned to favor Montana at the expense of other states.

“I hope you won’t arrive there so roughly,” said the young man.

The word roughly caught Hervey and he glanced sideways at the young man rather more interestedly than he usually did at chance acquaintances. For indeed all people were pretty much the same to Hervey. What he saw was a young fellow of perhaps twenty who gave the impression of being so correct in his deportment that his sudden discomforture made him look ridiculous. He was so utterly out of the spirit of Hervey’s prank! Fate had certainly brought together an all-assorted pair. He was an oldish young fellow, a perfect gentleman assuredly; too nearly perfect for his age.

“Did you lasso any ponies out there?” Hervey demanded briskly, as if these exploits were Montana’s single claim to importance.

“I don’t think I even saw any,” said the young man.

“Didn’t even see any? They’ve got train robbers.”

“Well, I couldn’t exactly deny that.”

“Were you running away from home?” Hervey asked, in his rapid fire fashion.

“I was attending a musical convention,” said the young fellow.

“Oh, music. Can you play the harmonica?”

“I never tried.”

“Bet your life I’m going to Montana; yop, soon as I get the price. And believe me, I know where I’m going to get it.”

“You seem to be sure of everything,” said the stranger.

“I’m going to collop it,” said Hervey.

“That might be interesting if I knew what it meant,” his companion observed.

“You don’t know what collop means?”

“I must confess I don’t.”

“Good night!” ejaculated Hervey. “You know what bandits are, don’t you?”

“You mean to be a bandit?”

“Jiminetty, they’re not so bad. Look at Robin Hood; don’t they write poems and operas about him and everything? You’re supposed to know all about music, gee williger!”

This deft reasoning which seemed in a way to place music lovers in the category with outlaws did reach the young fellow’s limited sense of humor and he smiled. “Well, you’re certainly a queer youngster,” said he.

Pity the boy of twenty who calls another boy a youngster!

“How much do I have to have to go to Montana?” Hervey demanded.

“Well, you have to have considerable.”

“A hundred bucks?”

“At least.”

“That’s me, all right,” said Hervey.

It was characteristic of him that his resolution to go to Montana had originated at the moment of his noticing the stranger’s suitcase. It was also characteristic of him to say that he knew how he was to obtain the money to go there, when in fact he had no such knowledge. Yet it was not exactly an untruth since he had many singular plans for earning money. Did not he intend to join a circus?

Moreover, it was characteristic of him that he did not linger in the seat. Soon the train entered another curve and that was his cue to depart almost as unceremoniously as he had arrived, leaving the strange young fellow staring after him rather curiously.

Hervey’s second attempt was no more successful than his first. He would not check his staggering progress by using his hands because of a rhymed couplet which was part of his creed:

Try a stunt and make a rule,

Break it and you’re one big fool.

Again he went sprawling, this time upon the lap of a kindly old gentleman, who smiled upon him and made a place for him on the seat.

“Maybe you think that’s easy,” said Hervey.