Left End Edwards | Page 7

with hurrying crowds,
bustle, noise, confusion and importunate porters. Even though the two
boys emerged to the platform in a somewhat dazed condition, they had
no intention of wasting perfectly good pocket money having their bags

carried for them, and so started out to find the office of the baggage
transfer company quite bravely. For a minute they had only to follow
the hurrying throng of fellow-passengers, but soon this throng divided
and went separate ways and Steve and Tom, resting their arms by
depositing their hand luggage on the lower step of an apparently
interminable flight of broad stairs, looked about for someone to
question. But everyone seemed in a terrible hurry, and when, at last,
Steve ventured to put a query to a benevolent-looking elderly
gentleman who clutched a tightly-rolled umbrella in one hand and an
afternoon paper in the other, he almost had his head bitten off! In the
end, they proceeded up the stairway and at last came upon a returning
porter who gave them their direction. By the time they had reached the
transfer company's office they had walked so far that Tom wondered
whether most of the city was not contained inside the station!
Presently, though, he saw that it wasn't. For they found themselves
standing outside the terminal on a street that stretched, apparently, for
millions of miles in each direction! They had received detailed advice
from the man in the transfer company's office as to the best method of
reaching the Grand Central Station, and the directions had sounded
quite easy to follow. But now the feat didn't look so simple, for the man
had told them to take a car going in a certain direction and there wasn't
a car in sight! Moreover, when Tom came to look for car-tracks there
weren't any! He pointed out the fact to Steve, and Steve, at first a bit
dismayed, at last shrugged his shoulders and observed his chum
pityingly.
"You don't suppose all the cars in this town run on tracks, do you?" he
asked.
"What do they run on then?"
"Why--er--you wait and see!"
"That's all right, but it's almost three o'clock and our train goes from the
other station at a quarter-past, and----"
"Well, we'll ask someone," said Steve. But, oddly enough, there was no

one to ask. For a town as large as New York that block of street was
strangely deserted. A team or two passed and an elderly woman crept
by on the opposite sidewalk, but no one came near them. Finally Steve
muttered:
"Looks to me as if we were on the wrong street. Maybe there are two
doors to this old station, Tom."
"Of course there are! Let's walk down to that corner. There goes a car
now!" And Tom, as though his future happiness depended on catching
that particular car, seized his bag and started down the street at a run.
Steve followed more leisurely, and when he reached the corner Tom
was talking to a policeman. It was all very simple. They had made the
mistake of leaving the terminal by a wrong exit and had emerged on to
a cross-town street. After that it was easy. A car lumbered up, the
policeman stopped it for them, they climbed aboard, were hurled half
the length of the aisle and fell into seats. A few minutes later they
transferred to a cross-town line without misadventure.
"They certainly make you step lively in this town," panted Tom,
clutching a strap and narrowly avoiding a seat in the lap of a very stout
lady. "Glad I don't have to live here!"
Steve, however, whose eyes were darting hither and thither in a
desperate effort to lose none of the sights, was more favourably
disposed toward the city. Even when, owing to a blockade at one of the
street intersections, it became evident that they could not possibly make
the three-fifteen train to Brimfield, Steve refused to be troubled.
"Maybe," he said, "we'll have time to walk around a bit and see
something. Say we do it, anyway, Tom?"
"No, sir, this place is too blamed big! First thing we'd know we'd be
lost for fair and never would get to Brimfield. When I get to that station
I'm going to sit down and stay there!"
When they did reach it the three-fifteen train had been gone nearly ten
minutes, and inquiry at a window labelled "Information" elicited the
announcement that the next train available for them would not leave

until three-fifty-eight, since Brimfield, it seemed, was not a sufficiently
important station to be served by all the trains.
"That gives us half an hour," said Steve eagerly. "Let's check our bags
somewhere and go out and look around."
"Yes, and get lost! No, sir, not for mine!"
"Oh, don't be