"All right. You can get a letter, just the same; can't you?"
"Why--I suppose so. I--I never _did_ receive a letter--not one."
"All right. You'll get one from me," promised Scorch, with assurance. "If I find out anything about Old Gordon that looks like we was on his trail, I'll let you know."
"That's very nice of you," replied Nancy, demurely, but quite amused. "Now, have you finished, Scorch?"
"Full up," declared the youngster. "The gangplank's ashore and we're ready to sail--if we ain't overloaded," and he got up from his chair with apparent difficulty.
Nancy had paid the bill and tipped the waiter. She had a good bit of the ten dollars left to slip back in her pocketbook; but she reserved a crisp dollar-bill where it would be handy.
They had plenty of time to walk to the station, and Nancy was glad to do this. Besides, Scorch declared he needed the exercise.
The red-headed boy was a mixture of good-heartedness and mischievousness that both delighted Nancy and horrified her. He was saucy to policemen, truckmen, and anybody who undertook to treat him carelessly on the street. But he aided his charge very carefully over all the crossings, and once ran back into the middle of the street and held up traffic to pick up an old woman's parcel.
They came to the station, got Nancy's bag, and Scorch insisted upon taking her to the very step of the car. When she shook hands with him Nancy had the banknote ready and she left it in his hand.
Before she got up the steps, however, he ran back, pushed aside the brakeman, and reached her.
"Say! you can't do that," he gasped, his face as red as his hair.
"You can't tip _me_. Say! I ain't the waiter--nor the janitor of the flat. I'm the hero--and the heroine never tips the hero--nix on that!"
The next moment he had thrust the dollar-bill into her hand, jumped down to the platform, and scuttled through the crowd, leaving Nancy with the feeling that she had offended a friend.
When the train pulled out of the station Nancy Nelson noticed for the first time that the sky had become overcast and the clouds threatened rain. Scorch O'Brien, the odd new friend she had made, was so sprightly a soul that she really had not observed the change in the weather.