l, I supposed you had, you idiot! How? Hit it against your head?"

The other smiled in his slow fashion. "We had a sort of a wreck coming
on. Out in Indiana somewhere. I got this. That's why I'm behind time."

"I'm beastly sorry, old man! I didn't notice the crepe. Did I hurt it
much!"

"No. I yelled so you wouldn't. Preparedness, you know. Safety first and
so on. It isn't much. How's everything here?"

Tim seated himself at the other end of the seat, took his knees in his
hands, and beamed.

"Oh, fine! Say, I'm tickled to death to see your ugly mug again, Don.
You aren't a bit handsomer, are you?"

"I've been told I was. Trouble with you is, you don't recognise manly
beauty when you see it."

"Oh, don't I?" Tim twirled an imaginary moustache. "I recognise it every
time I look in the glass! Well, how are you aside from the bum fist?"

"Great! I've just had a seance with Josh. I tried to register and sneak
by, but Brooke wouldn't have it that way. 'Er, quite so, Gilbert, quite
so, but I--er--think you had better see Mr. Fernald.' So I did, and Josh
read me the riot act. Thought for awhile he was going to send me home
again."

"But didn't you tell him your train was wrecked?"

"Yes, but he didn't believe in it much. Thought I was romancing, I
guess. Got a railway guide and showed me how I might have got here on
time just the same. Maybe he's right, but I couldn't figure it out in
Cincinnati. Besides, I didn't get away with much of anything besides
pajamas and overcoat and shoes, and so I had to refit. That lost me the
first connection and then I got held up again at Pittsburg. So here I
am, the late Mr. Gilbert."

"Josh is an idiot," said Tim disgustedly. "Didn't he see your hand? How
did he think you did that if you weren't in a wreck?"

"Oh, I kept that in my pocket and I guess he didn't notice it. He came
around all right in the end, though. We parted friends. At least, I
did."

"Well, what about that?" Tim nodded at the injured hand. "How'd you cut
you, burn you?"

"Yes. Things got on fire."

"You're the most vivid descriptionist I ever listened to! Come across
with the sickening details. How did it happen? I didn't see anything
about it in the papers."

"Probably wasn't on the sporting page," replied Don gravely.

"Oh, dry up and blow away! Wasn't it in the papers?"

"Cincinnati papers had it. I haven't read the others. It wasn't much of
a wreck really. Engineer killed, fireman scalded, about t