CHAPTER XII NEWLY FOUND FRIENDS

When Barnaby Vernon, at the close of his first day at Dr. Manning’s, found himself alone in the really luxurious room assigned him for the night, it would have been too much to expect that he should at once go to bed and to sleep.

The events of the day, no less than his unaccustomed surroundings, combined to stir such a fever in his young blood as was not likely to cool down very soon.

“Major Montague isn’t the man to give it up in that way,” he said to himself, aloud. “He always seemed to take special care of that valise. No doubt he wants it back again. Now, too, he may get it into his head that there’s money to be made, somehow, out of my new friends. Reckon I can trust Judge Danvers to take care of that. Anyhow, I’m so glad to get away. Hope it isn’t too much of a change in Val’s[Pg 147] plans. He doesn’t seem to mind it, I should say. Must be a good deal of fun in catching fish.”

Then, after a moment’s silence, he continued:

“What a room this is! Splendid thing to be rich and feel that all your money belongs to you. Not any swindling tricks for me, money or no money. Besides, the money that comes that way don’t stay. Haven’t I seen the major and the rest flush of it, a hundred times? Then it was sure to go and they were hard up again. They’ll bring up, one of these days, where the dogs can’t get at them. Wonder what that big book is on the table? Ha—that’s a queer Bible. Saw one before on a steamboat. Saw another in a hotel. Best hotel I ever stopped at. Curious sort of book. It’s what they preach about. Guess I’ll look into it one of these days. Let me see, wasn’t there something like that book away back there, years ago? So there was. Then my father couldn’t have been of Major Montague’s kind. Wonder if my folks were Bible folks. Dr. Manning’s are. Is that what makes ’em rich? There’s a good many things I don’t know, and that’s one of ’em.”

A good many things, indeed, and Bar had got[Pg 148] into the right sort of hands to learn some of them.

Hours later, when at last sleep came to him, a dream came with it, and it seemed to him as if he were a very little boy indeed, and a very sweet-faced lady, whose way of smiling made him think of Mrs. Manning, held him on her knee while a tall, dark, pale-looking gentleman read to her from just such a big book as that on the table in his chamber.

Dreams are very curious things, as everybody knows, only it’s the fashion to laugh at them, and so, perhaps, Barnaby ought to have laughed at his when he awoke.

He didn’t, however, do any such thing, but he would have liked to know somebody well enough to tell it, and there was no such person, for him, in the wide world.

Bar was right, however, about Major Montague.

The preparations for the trip of the two boys to the seashore were such as could easily be made in half an hour, and they were off together on the early train, well supplied with all sorts of fishing-tackle, and brimful of high spirits and expectation.

[Pg 149]Even Bar, however, had scarcely guessed how closely his movements had been followed the day before.

Scarcely had he been gone two hours, and while the doctor was busy with his morning list of “callers,” among the latter came a gentleman whom the good physician thought he would have recognized, from Bar’s description, even if he had not introduced himself as Major Montague.

Any one more profusely polite and so tremendously dignified at the same time, had not entered that reception-room in many a day.

“You have a young gentleman, a relative, I may say a ward, of mine visiting with you,” remarked the major, unchilled by the manner of his reception. “I’ve done myself the honor to call and see you about him. Glad he’s in such good hands, but——”

“Oh! you mean Mr. Vernon?” bluntly interrupted the doctor. “He left the city this morning.”

“Left the city!” exclaimed the major. “May I a-a-ask where he’s gone?”

“Not of me, you can’t,” snapped the doctor.[Pg 150] “If you want to make any inquiries I must refer you to Mr. Vernon’s counsel, Judge Danvers. I’ve nothing more to say. Excuse me, sir. I have patients to attend to. My time’s not my own. Good-morning. John, show the gentleman out.”

John was just the very man for that kind of duty, and Major Montague went down the front steps with the abiding assurance that he had never been turned out of any other house so politely and ceremoniously in all his life. He ought to have been a good judge of that sort of thing too.

Meantime, Bar and Val found themselves dashing away across country at the best speed of the Eastern express train, and they would have been more or less than boys if they had not set themselves at once to work on a general investigation of the character of their fellow-passengers.

Val might scarcely have been accurate or thorough, but there was something closely approaching professional skill in Bar’s observations.

A little in front of them, across the passage, a double seat had been taken possession of, for the car was not crowded, by a somewhat feeble-looking[Pg 151] but very nice, middle-aged lady and one of the brightest, prettiest girls, of fifteen years or thereabouts, that either of the boys had ever seen.

That was all as it should be, but at the very first stopping-place, the car was entered by a flashily-dressed young man, of middle height, who took a brief survey of the passengers, from the door, and then walked deliberately forward and set himself down in the vacant seat by the side of the lady.

There was nothing in the established usages of railway traveling which should have made a positive crime of this, but there was something in the way the newcomer gazed at the fresh-faced girl opposite him which brought the blood to the face of Val Manning.

“The impudent scamp!” he muttered to Bar. “Why couldn’t he have found another seat?”

“Keep still a bit,” said Bar. “I know what he’s up to, or I’m greatly mistaken.”

If the ladies themselves were disturbed by the presence of the stranger, they were not disposed to make any public exhibition of their disgust.

[Pg 152]It is true that the elder seemed to become more interested than before in the scenery through which the train was passing, and the younger took a sudden plunge into a book which had been lying neglected on her lap.

“That’s just what he wants,” said Bar to Val. “Anything to keep their eyes off him. There, that’s it. He’s a good deal clumsier than old Prosper.”

It happened that, a few seats further on, a party of four gentlemen were sitting together in animated conversation, and the outer one of the two who were facing Bar and Val was a man of unusual size, though not of a particularly intellectual appearance.

He had not been paying any attention, that Val had noticed, to the operations of the flashy stranger, but now he suddenly exclaimed, or so it seemed:

“Keep your hand out of her pocket.”

At the same moment he sprang to his feet as if in great astonishment, and so did the unwelcome companion of the two ladies.

“What do you mean, sir?” shouted the latter, with a face that was white and red by turns, but[Pg 153] then he added, or seemed to add, “I’ll pick all the pockets in this car if I choose.”

“You will, will you?” exclaimed the big man, in a voice whose lion-like depth of “roar” contrasted strangely with the tones of his previous remark. “I didn’t say you had picked any pockets, but I don’t mean you shall, either.”

“I didn’t say that,” began the flashy man, but his next words were, “and I’ve dropped hers on the floor.”

With that he put on such a look of abject terror as no human face can possibly counterfeit, and sprang away from his place, crying out:

“It must be the devil!”

“Very likely,” responded the big man, as he started in pursuit, but there were other hands extended, and the frightened runaway was brought to an immediate stand.

Meantime, the ladies, scarcely less astonished than the pickpocket, had been making a hurried search.

“I have indeed lost my pocketbook, Sibyl,” said the elder.

“And there it is, mother, on the floor, just where he said he had dropped it,” exclaimed[Pg 154] Sibyl, but at that very moment Bar Vernon was picking it up.

“Thank you, sir,” said Sibyl, as she took it in her hand, but Bar replied:

“You’d better open it at once and see if anything is missing.”

“Why so?” asked Sibyl.

“Oh! miss,” exclaimed Val, “do just as he says. It was his work detecting that man. He’s a wonderful fellow.”

The elder lady looked in Val’s handsome, earnest young face, with a very motherly smile, as she said:

“Let me see, Sibyl. I’ve no doubt the boys are right. It won’t do any harm.”

The pocketbook was opened, but it was nearly empty.

“Exactly,” remarked Bar. “Now he must be searched.”

“You seem to know a good deal for a fellow of your age,” very loudly and roughly exclaimed one of the bystanders. “We’d better look to your case. Who are you, anyway?”

“You here, too, Mr. Bonnet?” was Bar’s quick rejoinder. “Gentlemen, here’s another[Pg 155] man that mustn’t get out of the car till the money’s been found.”

“Mr. Bonnet” made a sudden movement, but he found himself in the strong grasp of the big man.

There was no manner of use in struggling, but the latter asked our hero:

“You know these fellows, it seems; are you a detective?”

“What do you think about it?” asked Bar. “I never saw either of them before, but I know that man for a professional pickpocket, and this one for his bonnet—his bully.”

“One of ’em’s got that money, then!” exclaimed the big man. “Come, my fine fellow, shell over. I knew the railroad company had set detectives on the express trains, but I’d never have taken them boys for ’em.”

“Me?” exclaimed Val, indignantly; “I’m a son of Dr. Randall Manning, of New York, and this is my friend, Mr. Barnaby Vernon.”

“It’s all right,” said the big man. “Go by any name you please. Only it’s a great credit to the company, and I wonder they didn’t think of it before.”

[Pg 156]At the word “detective,” the two pickpockets seemed to give the matter up, and in a minute more the ladies had counted their returned “valuables,” and declared them all right.

“Now, Mr. Vernon,” said the big man to Bar, “what are we to do with these men?”

“Put them in charge of the conductor,” said Bar. “I’ve got another errand on hand.”

It happened, however, that when the conductor, who speedily arrived, was appealed to, he at once produced from another car, a “sure enough” official detective, and the big man winked at Bar, and said:

“Of course. You know just what to do. Bill,” he added to one of his friends, “look at that. Those two fellows would swear neither of ’em ever saw the other before, and yet we’ve seen, with our own eyes, how one of ’em catches the birds, and the other’s right on hand to cage ’em. It’s just splendid, and it’s a great credit to the company. I wonder they never thought of it before. By-the-way, who was it shouted at that pickpocket first?”

That was a hard question to answer.

The two ladies, not being by any means so[Pg 157] “sharp” as the big man deemed himself, felt sure that the boys looked more than a little annoyed by the peculiar impression they seemed to have created, and the elder turned and beckoned to Val.

“Did you say,” she asked, as he came across and bent forward towards her, “that you are a son of Dr. Manning?”

“Yes, madam,” said Val.

“He was my father’s family physician at one time. My name is Brayton. Ask your friend to come over here. I must thank him for saving me my money.”

Bar came readily enough, but he was a little inclined to stand upon his dignity until he found that Mrs. Brayton was quite disposed to accept Val’s account of “himself and friend.”

Then, indeed, the boys were both quite contented to sit down with their new acquaintances, and Mrs. Brayton was not many minutes in ascertaining not only their present errand but their after destination. Not that she learned either from Bar, but Val was very much of a boy, and ready to be communicative with a “former patient of his father.”

[Pg 158]“Going to school at Ogleport Academy?” exclaimed Sibyl. “Why, mother, how strange! That is where George has gone.”

“Your brother?” said Bar. “Then we shall make his acquaintance, of course. Is he older than you?”

“Oh, yes, a good deal,” laughed Sibyl. “He has gone there as assistant principal, and I hope he will make you mind him as well as I have to, when he’s at home.”

“Is he such a severe fellow?” asked Val. “I shall look out for him.”

“You’d better,” said Sibyl, but her mother added:

“I feel pretty sure he will do his duty, but he’s not a man anybody need be afraid of.”

With so much of a foundation to go on, the boys made fine headway with their remaining conversation, nor were they at all disappointed when the train at last reached their own destination, to find that Mrs. Brayton and Sibyl were also “at home.”

To be sure, Bar and Val had still a stage ride of some miles to the little village on the coast where they were to do their fishing, but they[Pg 159] promised to run over and call on their new friends before returning to the city.

“On the whole, Bar,” said Val, “and thanks to you, this has been about the tallest bit of railway riding I ever did in my life.”