Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/304

 Poor Dick! The sight of his father standing there, abandoned and exposed, would have been too much for him, had not the old man's last words—"blundering impostor"—stung him to renewed resentment.

As he turned to continue his duties, a general murmur of conversation arose. He caught snatches which made him miserably uncomfortable.

"What ailed the old crank anyhow?" said one voice.

"I reckon he'd been out on a bat," another chuckled.

"The young feller stood to his guns like a man," declared a third.

At last Dick escaped onto the rear platform, where a shrewd-faced Yankee was leaning against the brake, contemplatively chewing tobacco.

As Dick appeared, he looked up inquiringly, and pointing his thumb over his shoulder, drawled:

"He warn't tipsy naow, was he?"

Dick flared up. "Tipsy! If I was off duty, I'd fight the whole car-load of idiots. There's not one of them that's fit to black that man's boots."

The Yankee gave the tobacco quid a twist with his tongue, and seemed to be making a study of Dick's heated countenance.

"Waal, I snum," he said, drawling more than