Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/203

 "Isn't that the Wabash?" said Grigsby, cocking his head at the night cry of a locomotive.

"I don' know," said Jennings, who was growing mellow, "on'y whistles I could ever tell was them on the ol' O. and M., 'ceptin' o' course, the toot of the Three States, which is now at Cairo, ef she hain't stuck on a mud bank over on the Mizzouri shore some'er's 'round Bird's Landin'."

Grigsby looked at his watch. It was ten minutes of one, and just as he dolefully announced the hour the door opened, and Hennessey entered, carrying a leather traveling-bag. Grigsby leaped toward him, his itching fingers outstretched to seize the valise.

"Is it all there?" he exclaimed.

"Take me for a thief?" replied Hennessey, swinging the bag behind him.

Hennessey proffered the bag to his master, but Jennings said:

"Wait a minute." Then he ran his hand wrist-*deep into his pocket and drew out a paper, which he examined critically, squinting his eyes, partly to protect them from the smoke that curled up from a big domestic cigar, partly—as it seemed, to assist in the concentration of his thoughts.