But it is high time we were returning to Chicago to look after the lost Lakeville children.
“I think they might have waited for us,” panted Mabel, no longer able to run. “They might have known we’d get lost.”
“It wasn’t their fault,” said Henrietta. “I should have asked them to wait. But that’s just like me. I’m always doing things on the spur of the moment and then wishing I hadn’t.”
“If we only knew where they were going to eat—”
“But we don’t. Mr. Black said that as long as our train was late getting in and we had missed our connection with the Hiltonburg train that we’d just check our baggage to the other station and walk about until time for lunch. After that we’d go some place to look at something—I’ve forgotten just what—and leave for Hiltonburg at three o’clock.”
“I wish I had my lunch right now,” wailed Mabel, dragging her hat into place and stuffing loose locks under it. “I’m hungry and I’m thirsty and my new shoes hurt my feet. It’s awfully noisy here and I don’t like being lost. I don’t like it—”
“Mabel,” warned Henrietta, “if you cry, I’ll run away and leave you here and then you’ll be a lot more lost than you are now. I’m just as much lost as you are, even if I have been in Chicago before. We’ll go along until we see a restaurant with ladies eating in it and we’ll go in and eat—”
“But we haven’t any money,” objected Mabel, dismally.
“If I remember rightly,” said Henrietta, after a moment’s deep thought, “they don’t ask for your money until after you’ve eaten. I think I know of a way to fix it. Wait a minute until I tidy you up a little. There are three dabs of soot on your face and your hair is all over the place. Of course we want to look as if we had money.”
“You always do,” said Mabel, “but I don’t.”
“Still,” consoled Henrietta, “you always look as if you’d had meals—as many as four or five a day.”
“But,” questioned Mabel, “are you sure it’s all right?”
“Of course. I told you I knew a way to fix it. Here’s a place right here—not very big but the folks look all right. Stand up straight and don’t look so scared. There, that’s better.”
They were inside. The waiter held up two fingers and escorted them to a table. They sat down and Henrietta leisurely removed her gloves. Mabel’s had been removed—and lost—for some hours.
“We might as well have a good meal,” remarked Henrietta, studying the menu. “Of course, if Mr. Black were paying for it I’d leave the choice to him; but as long as he isn’t we’ll choose what we like. Let’s begin with cream of celery soup. Then how would you like chicken à la king and shrimp salad, creamed cauliflower, French fried potatoes—and ice cream for dessert?”
“That’s all right for me,” agreed Mabel, visibly cheering up, “only I like the looks of the green corn that man is eating over there; and the waiter just went by with a big tray of fluffy things—”
“French pastry. We can have some of that, too.”
They enjoyed their meal. Being lost wasn’t half bad when the salad was so delicious, the chicken so tender, the rolls so delightfully crisp, the corn so sweet, the service so excellent. Besides her ice cream, Mabel ate two varieties of French pastry and was sorry that Henrietta didn’t urge her to try more when there were so many kinds. But Henrietta was putting on her gloves.
Henrietta picked up the slip, carried it to the cashier’s desk and remarked, calmly: “Charge it, please, to Mrs. Howard Slater.”
“But, my dear girl,” objected the cashier, “we don’t charge meals. This is a cash place.”
“Oh, is it?” said Henrietta, flushing slightly. “I’m sorry for that. You see, we haven’t any cash. But if you will send the bill to my grandmother, of course she will pay it.”
“It’s a pretty big bill,” remarked the young woman with suspicion. “I think I’d better call the manager. Mr. Hobbs—Oh, Mr. Hobbs! Step here a moment please.”
Mr. Hobbs “stepped here.” The young woman explained.
“Mrs. Slater of this city?” he asked.
“No,” returned Henrietta; “of Lakeville, Michigan.”
“How do I know she’ll pay this?”
“Oh, she will,” exclaimed both girls at once. “She always does.”
“Well, you look as if she did,” said the man, who had taken in all the details of Henrietta’s well made costume. “If you’ll give me her address and write a little note to go with the bill, I’ll let you go this time. This—this isn’t a regular performance, is it?”
“Oh, no,” assured Henrietta. “We just happened to get separated from our friends and they had all the money; but I knew it would be all right.”
“I hope it is,” said the manager, a little later, as he addressed an envelope to Mrs. Slater. “Those children certainly ate a square meal.”
In the meantime, perplexed Mr. Black gathered what remained of his flock as close to him as possible, looked anxiously up and down the street and wondered what to do.
“If we stay right here,” said Jean, “they may catch up.”
“If we go back for a couple of blocks,” said Marjory, “we may find them.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Bettie, “they passed us when we stopped to look at those clocks.”
“It’s time we were having our lunch,” said Mr. Black. “Suppose we walk back and forth the length of this block—we must find those girls.”
“Couldn’t we ask that policeman if he had seen two girls, one fat and one very dark?” asked Marjory.
They could and they did, but the policeman hadn’t. He looked indeed as if he had never condescended to see anything below the level of his own lofty chin.
“Now what,” asked worried Mr. Black, taking off his hat and mopping his forehead, “would you do, girls, if you were lost?”
“I’d die,” said Marjory.
“I’d telegraph my father,” said Bettie.
“I’d remember that I was going to Hiltonburg on the three o’clock train,” said Jean, “and I’d ask a policeman how to get to the station.”
“Good,” said Mr. Black. “Would either of those girls think of that?”
“Mabel wouldn’t,” replied Jean, “but Henrietta might. She has traveled a lot you know. She’s been in London, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Washington, Boston and even in Chicago—but not for very long. Still, she knows a lot more about cities than we do. She has stayed in hotels—perhaps she’ll go to one.”
“But—had she any money? Had Mabel?”
“Mabel’s mother didn’t give her very much,” said Jean. “She always loses it. What she had she packed in her suitcase.”
“And I have Henrietta’s,” mourned Mr. Black. “Poor girls! They are frightened half to death and hungry too. They had an early breakfast, poor things. I should have kept an eye on them every moment.”
“Just one eye wouldn’t have been enough for Henrietta,” remarked Bettie. “She darts about like a humming bird. There’s one thing certain. They’re not in this block.”
“We’ll walk back and forth for twenty minutes longer,” said Mr. Black. “Then we’ll get something to eat. After that we’ll go to the station.”
Owing to very slow service, it was almost two o’clock before they finished their meal. There was another delay when they tried to find a taxicab. After that they were held up twice by congested traffic and the anxious girls began to fear that they might be late for the three o’clock train; but they were not.
Mr. Black was quite pale and haggard from anxiety when at last they reached the station. He gave an audible sigh of relief when two girls seated just inside the waiting room door, hopped up and grabbed his coat tails to halt his rapid stride through the station.
“Oh, Mr. Black,” squealed Mabel. “We’re here. We walked all the way and we asked a policeman on every corner to make sure we were getting to the right place. I used to think I ought to run if I saw a policeman but I guess they’re pretty useful if you’re good—only I wasn’t. It was all my fault. I went into a store to buy candy.”
“It was mine, too,” said Henrietta. “I should have known better. I just didn’t think—I never do. I’m awfully sorry.”
“Well, well,” returned Mr. Black, “I’m certainly glad you were capable enough to get to the right station. Now take hold of hands, all of you, and Bettie, you hold on to my coat like grim death. We must buy our tickets, re-check our baggage and get aboard our train.”