e was so far from regretting his former
interventions that at the first junction where his train stopped he
employed the time in exploring the freight-house in the vain hope of
finding it there, and urging the road to greater speed in its delivery
to Miss Desmond. He was now not at all ashamed of the stand he had taken
in the matter at former opportunities, and he was not abashed when a man
in a silk cap demanded, across the twilight of the freight-house, in
accents of the semi-sarcasm appropriate in addressing a person
apparently not minding his own business, "Lost something?"

"Yes, I have," answered Gaites with just effrontery. "I've lost an
upright piano. I started with it from Boston ten days or a fortnight
ago, and I've found it everywhere I've stopped, and sometimes where I
didn't stop. How long, in the course of nature, ought an upright piano
to take in getting to this point from Boston, anyway?"

The man obviously tasted the sarcasm in Gaites's tone, and dropped it
from his own, but he was sulkier if more respectful than before in
answering: "'D ought a come right through in a couple of days. 'D ought
a been here a week ago."

"Why isn't it here now, then?"

"Might 'a' got off on some branch road, by mistake, and waited there
till it was looked up. You see," the man continued, resting an elbow on
the tall casing of a chest of drawers, and dropping to a more
confidential level in his manner, "an upright piano ain't like a
passenger. It don't kick if it's shunted off on the wrong line. As a
gene'l rule, freight don't complain of the route it travels by, and it
ain't in a hurry to arrive."

"Oh!" said Gaites, with a sympathetic sneer.

"But it ain't likely," said the man, who now pushed his hat far back on
his head, in the interest of self-possession, "that it's gone wrong.
With all these wash-outs and devilments, the last fo't-night, it might
a' been travellin' straight and not got the'a, yet. What d'you say was
the address?"

"Lower Merritt," said Gaites, beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.

"Name?" persisted the man.

"Miss Phyllis Desmond," Gaites answered, now feeling really silly, but
unable to get away without answering.

"That ain't your name?" the man suggested, with reviving sarcasm.

"No, it isn't!" Gaites retorted, angrily, aware that he was giving
himself away in fine shape.

"Oh, I see," the man mocked. "Friend o' the family. Well, I guess you'll
find your piano at Lower Merritt,