Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/82

Rh the door, and the boy—who was a big, strapping fellow—entered with me. We found the ex-broker still wrapped in the soundest slumber. Leaving the boy to watch him, I went upstairs and got a baggage-tag, which I directed to the chief of police at the police-station in Hackingford. I returned to the kitchen and fastened this tag, conspicuously, on the lappel [sic] of the sleeper's coat. Then, with a clothes-line, I tied him up carefully, hand and foot. To all this he offered not the slightest opposition. When he was suitably packed, with due regard to the probable tenderness of wrist and ankle in one brought up in luxury, the boy and I carried him to the waggon.

He was a heavy load, and we may have bumped him a little, but his sleep was not disturbed. Then we drove him to the express office. This was at the railroad station, and the station-master was also express agent. At first he was not inclined to receive my parcel, but when I assured him that all sorts of live things were sent by express, and that I could see no reason for making an exception in this case, he added my arguments to his own disposition as a house-holder, to see the goods forwarded to their destination, and so gave me a receipt, and pasted a label on the ex-broker's shoulder. I set no value on the package, which I prepaid. "Now, then," said the station-master, "he'll go all right, if the express agent on the train will take him."

This matter was soon settled, for in a few minutes the train stopped at the station. My package was wheeled to the express car, and two porters, who entered heartily into the spirit of the thing, hoisted it into the car. The train agent, who just then noticed the character of the goods, began to declare that he would not have the fellow in his car; but my friend