Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/205

 just ahead, would choose the dignified safety of the lift.

So far as it went the thought was reassuring. Alas, it did not go far. As June ran through the long station to the cloak-room at its farthest end, she had but a very slender hope of being able to recover the parcel. She had no intention, however, of submitting tamely to fate. In this predicament, whatever the cost, she must make one last and final effort to get back her treasure.

At the cloak-room counter she took her courage in both hands. A man sour and elderly had replaced the wearer of the green corduroy, who was nowhere to be seen. This was a piece of bad luck, for she had hoped that the nice-looking young man might remember her. Happily, no other passengers besieged the counter at the moment, so that without loss of time June was able to describe the parcel and to announce the fact that the ticket she had received for it was missing.

Exactly as she had foreseen the clerk raised an objection. Without a ticket she couldn't have the parcel. "But I simply must have it," said June. And spurred by the knowledge that there was not one moment to lose in arguing the case, she boldly lifted the flap of the counter and entered the cloak-room itself.

"No use coming in here," said the Clerk, crustily. "You can't take nothing away without a ticket."

"But my purse has been stolen, I tell you," said June.

"Then I should advise you to go and see the station-*master."

"I can't wait to do that." And with the defiance of despair, expecting each moment to hear the voice of Uncle Si at her back, June ignored the Clerk, and proceeded to gaze up and down the numerous and heavily burdened luggage racks for her property.