the poor brakeman's family, flew off from the bed, set a kiss on
Alexia's hot cheek, and another on Mamsie's, and raced off.

"I'm coming, Jasper," she called. She could see him below in the wide
hall.

"All right, don't hurry so, father isn't ready yet. Dear me! Polly, you
can get ready so quickly for things!" he said admiringly. And, in the
glow of starting, he couldn't see that Polly's spirits seemed at a low
ebb, and he drew a long breath as he tried to make himself believe that
what he had noticed at luncheon wasn't really so at all.

And Polly, between Grandpapa and Jasper, tried to make them have such a
good time that really it seemed no walk at all, and they were all quite
surprised when they found themselves there.

"We must go up into the superintendent's room," said Mr. King. So up the
long stairs they went, the old gentleman grumbling at every step because
there was no elevator, and at all other matters and things that were,
as he declared, "at loose ends in the whole system." At last they stood
before the desk.

"Have the goodness," began old Mr. King to the official, a short,
pompous person who came up in the absence of the superintendent and now
turned a cold face up to them, "to give me some information regarding a
brakeman who was killed last night in the accident to the train due here
at 7.45."

"Don't know anything about him," said the official in the crispest
accents. He looked as if he cared less, and was about to slam down the
window, when Mr. King asked, "Does anybody in this office know?"

"Can't say." The official pulled out his watch, compared it with the big
clock on the wall, then turned away.

"Do any of you know who the man was who was killed last night?" asked
the old gentleman, putting his face quite close to the window, and
speaking in such clear, distinct tones that every clerk looked up.

Each man searched all the other faces. No, they didn't know; except one,
a little, thin, weazen-faced person over in the corner, at a high desk,
copying. "I only know that his name was Jim," he said in a voice to
match his figure.

"Have the goodness to step this way, sir, and tell me what you do know,"
said Mr. King in such a way that the little man, but with many glances
for the pompous individual, slipped off from his high stool, to advance
to the window rubbing his hands together deprecatingly. The other clerks
all laid down their pens to see the interview.

"What was his name--this