IGHT EXPRESS

John Armitage, Lieutenant U. S. N., followed the porter into the rear
car of the midnight express for Boston, and after seeing his bag
deposited under a lower berth, stood for a minute in frowning
indecision. A half-hour must elapse before the train started. He was
not a bit sleepy; he had, in fact, dozed most of the way from
Washington, and the idea of threshing about in the hot berth was not
agreeable. Finally, he took a short thick pipe from his pocket, and
picking his way gingerly between the funereal swaying curtains and
protruding shoes, he went outside to talk to the porter.

The features of this functionary relaxed, from the ineffable dignity
and self-containment of a dozing saurian, into an expression of open
interest as Armitage ranged alongside, with the remark that it was
cooler than earlier in the evening.

"Ya'as, suh," agreed the porter, "it sut'nly am mighty cooler, jes'
now, suh." He cocked his head at the young officer. "You 's in de
navy, suh, ain't you, suh? I knowed," he added, as Armitage nodded a
bored affirmative, "dat you was 'cause I seen de 'U. S. N.' on yo'
grip. So when dat man a minute ago asked me was dere a navy gen'lman
on my cyar, why I said--"

"Eh!" Armitage turned upon him so quickly that the negro recoiled.
"Asked for me! Who? What did he say? When did he ask?"

"I came outen the cyar after cahying in yo' bag, Majah," replied the
porter, unctuously, "and dey was a man jes' come up an' ask me what I
tole you. 'Ya'as, suh,' says I, 'I jes' took in de Kunnel's bag.' So
he goes in an' den out he comes again, givin' me fifty cents, an'
hoofed it out through de gates, like he was in a hurry."

Armitage regarded the negro strangely.

"What did he look like?" he asked. "Quick!"

"He was a lean, lanky man wid a mustache and eye-glasses. He looked
like a foreigner. He--"

But Armitage had started on a run for the iron gates. In the big
waiting-room there were, perhaps, a score of persons, dozing or
reading, no one of whom resembled the man described by the porter. He
passed across to the telephone booths and as he did so the one for whom
he was searching emerged from the telegraph office, walked rapidly to
the Forty-second Street doors, and jumped into a taxi-cab waiting at
the curb.

And so Armitage missed him. He walked back to the train with a
peculiar smile, emotions of pleasurable excitement and a sense of
something mysterious conflicting.