Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/887

Rh and preoccupation in his methods that suggested that he had a very old head on a juvenile pair of shoulders. As Ralph and his companion stood regarding the queer genius, an attendant came up to Wheels. He touched him politely on the shoulder, and as the lad looked up in a dazed, absorbed way, pointed to the clock in the room.

"You told me to inform you when it was two o'clock," spoke the attendant.

"Did I, now?" said Wheels in a lost, distressed sort of a way. "Dear me, what for, I wonder?" and he passed his hand abstractedly over his forehead. "Ah, I'll find out."

He proceeded to draw from his pocket the self-same memorandum he had consulted in the case of Jim Scroggins. He mumbled over a number of items, and evidently struck the right one at last, for he murmured something about "catch the noon mail with a letter to the patent office," arose, put on his cap, and hurriedly left the place, blissfully wool-gathering as the fact that noon had come and gone several hours since.

"I'm curious," observed Clark, and as Wheels left the place he followed the attendant to the library office, and left Ralph to stroll about alone, while he engaged the former in conversation. In about five minutes Clark came back to Ralph with a curious but satisfied smile on his face.