He was in
high spirits as he caught the east bound train. The whistles were
blowing for a quarter of six as he reached Pleasantville and leaped from
the engine, where a friendly engineer had given him a free ride, and in
three minutes was at the door of the little express office.
Animated voices reached him from the inside. Bart peered beyond the
threshold.
McCarthy, the night watchman, sat asleep in a chair in a corner. Darry
Haven was at the desk, a spruce, solemn-faced young man beside him.
"I'm here, Darry," announced Bart.
Darry turned with a joyful face. It fell as he glanced beyond his young
employer to the empty platform.
"No trunk!" he murmured in a low, disappointed tone.
"Too heavy to carry around, you see!" smiled Bart lightly. "Who is this
gentleman? Oh, I see--good afternoon, Mr. Stuart."
"Afternoon," crisply answered the stranger.
He was a young limb of the law, employed since the previous year in the
office of Judge Monroe, the principal attorney of Pleasantville.
Stuart was a butt for even the well-meaning boys of the town. He was
only nineteen, but he affected the dignity of a sage of sixty, seeming
to have the idea that nothing but a severe and forbidding manner could
represent the high and lofty calling he had condescended to follow.
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