News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-07-08
SHE HADN'T THE CHECK
An Impatient Young Lady and an Obstinate
Old Baggage Master.

There are perhaps few places where
one may more easily study human nature
In variety of phases than at the rail
way stations, and there Is perhaps no
branch of human experience in which
the ethereal vagaries of the feminine
mind are more fully displayed than in
the ingenuity shown in the invention of
mistakes and wrong medicines at the
stations. l was recently the involuntary
listener to controversy between an ex-
ceedingly irate young woman and a
baggage master, which may serve to
illustrate what mean. The young wo-
man wished to claim trunk which she
said belonged to her, but the check for
which had been thoughtlessly left in a
hand bag which friend had taken
down town shopping. The young wo-
man, who was pretty, vivacious, and of
remarkably intelligent expression, ex-
planned to the baggage master, and in
cidentally to line of waiting people,
half of whom were in danger of paying
for the pleasure of hearing her artless
tale by losing their respective trains,
that she had come to town for a we'd
ding, that she had had gown manu-
featured especially for the occasion, and
that the gown was in the trunk in ques-
ton.
"Of course" she explained lucidly,
cit isn't as if didn't want the dress to
wear to-day, and then I have the check,
you know; so it's all right"
'1f you have the check it is all
right, the baggage master replied, with
some appearance, sufficiently ungallant,
of considering that the conversation had
continued as long as he had right to
monopolize the pretty young lady's at
tention; "but can't give up trunks to
anybody that asks for them. You
haven't anybody to identify you and you
haven't any check"
ooh, but Lucy has the check" she
interposed, dimpling and smiling, "and
I'll send it to you tomorrow. | said I'd
send it down in the morning, and l
can't do any better than that, Tor l
shan't see Lucy till after breakfast, and
you know | must have my dress before
o'clock"
Her interlocutor took a check over
her shoulder from a hackman, and the
vivacious lady explained all the circum-
stances to strange, but sympathetic
old lady who had eIbowed her way up
to the window, so that when the I'M
fortunate official came up again there
were two women to tell him the facts in
the case, and explain to him that the
gown had really been made to wear this
afternoon, and it was IL already, and
that if Lucy hadn't gone off in such a
hurry the owner of the trunk would, of
course, have remembered the check,
and that the important bit of metal
should be sent down in the morning.
'And | know the number" the viva
cious damsel added, upon second
thought, as a clinching argument; ''or
at least | know it began with seven, and
there were three numbers"
l feel positive that the baggage mas.
ter would have yielded in time. No
man could endure such siege long;
especially as the young woman, rein
forced by the sympathetic old one,
pretty etfectually blocked the window
and stopped the entire business of the
department of inner baggage at busy
time of the day. Fortunately for all
concerned, however, at this stage of the
controversy 3 Hurried and d1sheveled
young lady appeared on the scene, and
made her way through the crowd as
only young woman or fire engine
can.
"Oh, Florence" she gasped, thrust
ing forward the missing check, 81 got
clear up to Winter street before found
it, and took herdic and came tear
ing back, and knew what an awful fix
you'd be in, and if you didn't get your
dress I'd never have forgiven myself"
She stopped from sheer want of
breath, and her friend fell upon her
with incoherent but satisfactory express
sions of rapture; while the sympathetic
old lady glared through her wide spec
tacles at the offending baggage master,
to remind him that he was taken, as it
were, redhanded in crime against all
that was highest in individual rights,
and remarked with biting emphasis:
''There, now, hope you are satisfied,
after all the fuss you have made and the
time you have kept all these folks wait
ing"
Personally I felt that collection
ought to be made for the much abused
baggage master, but he had so strong
an air of being perfectly used to this
sort of thing that concluded upon the
whole that it was hardly necessary to
press this point.