, crying:

"For Heaven's sake, conductor, stop the cars!"

"What's up?" he asked.

"What's up? Stop the cars, I say! Back down to the station again!
_This baby's mother's left!_"

"Then she left on purpose," he answered coolly; "she never went into
the eating-house at all. I saw her making tall tracks for the train
that goes the other way. I thought it was all right. I didn't notice
she hadn't her baby with her. I'll telegraph at the next station;
that's all that can be done now."

This capped the climax of all my previous blunders! Why had I blindly
consented to care for that woman's progeny? Why? why? Here was I, John
Flutter, a young, innocent, unmarried man, approaching the home of my
childhood with an infant in my arms! The horror of my situation turned
me red and pale by turns as if I had apoplexy or heart disease.

There was always a crowd of young people down at the depot of our
village; what would they think to see me emerge from the cars carrying
that baby? Even the child seemed astonished, ceasing to cry, and
staring around upon the passengers as if in wonder and amazement at
our predicament. Yet not one of those heartless travelers seemed to
pity me; every mouth was stretched in a broad grin; not a woman came
forward and offered to relieve me of my burden; and thus, in the midst
of my embarrassment and horror, the train rolled up to the well-known
station, and I saw my father and mother, and half the boys and girls
of the village, crowding the platform and waiting to welcome my
arrival.

CHAPTER XVII.

HE ENJOYS HIMSELF AT A BALL.

Once more I was settled quietly down to my old life, clerking in my
father's store. You would naturally suppose that my travels would have
given me some confidence, and that I had worn out, as it were, the
bashfulness of youth; but in my case this was an inborn quality which
I could no more get rid of, than I could of my liver or my spleen.

I had never confessed to any one the episode of the giant-powder or
the Chicago widow; but the story of the baby had crept out, through
the conductor, who told it to the station-master. If you want to know
how _that_ ended, I'll just tell you that, maddened by the grins and
giggles of the passengers, I started for the car door with that baby,
but, in passing those three giggling young ladies, I suddenly slung
the infant into their collective laps, and darted out upon the station
platform. That's the way I got out of that s