et to sleepin'. He ain't an easy
proposition, when he's gone to Bylow, now I tell you," and the conductor
of No. 5 swung himself aboard.

Elsmere had the time of his life in the two hours before the arrival of
the noon express. The station agent was a sociable soul. He had a
guinea-pig in a box, so delightful to observe that Elsmere forgot his
desire for zwieback and became conversational. He told the agent
the history of the polly-wogs he had raised "till they was all
froggies, only one was deaded." He showed the place where he had
cut his finger in the mower-lawn. He explained how fond he was of
back-horse-saddle-riding, and declared his intention of some day having
"frickers," caressing the agent's own sandy growth with great
admiration. He tried to perform on the telegraph instrument and cried
"Boo" with all his strength at a lady, peering in at the ticket window.
Altogether, Elsmere found traveling very much to his taste. The noon
express stopped for a minute, he was thrust aboard the last car, and a
few minutes later, according to instructions, the newsboy put him off at
Edgewater, with a cheery:

"Here y'are, Bub, and there's Ma and Gramma."

Elsmere had taken a fancy to the newsboy and did not at all wish to stop
at Edgewater. He ran down the track after the retreating train, howling
miserably.

As for "Ma and Gramma," they had been overtaken by the dispatch just as
they were starting to drive out to the farm, and had come in great
perplexity to the station. The wailing baby running down the track
suggested nothing to them, and the agent could give them no
satisfaction. He was locking up his office. There was not another train
to stop till No. 5 should return toward evening. So, still bewildered,
Mrs. Peters and her mother-in-law gave up their fruitless errand and
drove away, taking with them a problem for a lifetime's pondering.

Elsmere, as the train vanished around a curve, sat down on the track for
a while and listened to his own howls. Tiring of that amusement
presently, he strolled back to the station. Outwardly it looked much
like that hospitable one where he had enjoyed life earlier in the day.
This one, however, offered no entertainment beyond wandering about the
platform and the unoccupied waiting-room. Across the street was a little
restaurant. There were pies in the window.

Elsmere obeyed the summons.

"Pie," he said, presenting his nose to the edge of the lunch counter.

"Don't you monkey