Bob flushed a little, it was impossible not to help it, but he said nothing.  Meeting Betty’s indignant eyes, he smiled good-humoredly.

“Sweet pickles!” ejaculated Tommy Tucker indignantly.  “Here, you Timothy, hand me that suitcase at your feet—­it belongs to the little dark girl.”

Libbie, “the little dark girl,” smiled dreamily as Timothy passed her suitcase to Tommy.  She and Timothy Derby, ignoring the jeers of their friends, were deep in two white and gold volumes of poetry.  Timothy, Libbie had discovered, had a leaning toward the romantic in fiction, though he preferred his served in rhyme.

The wicked Tommy had a motive in asking for Libbie’s suitcase.  It was much smaller and lighter than any of the others, and he swung it deftly into the rack over the vinegary lady’s unsuspecting head.  With a deftness, born it must be confessed of previous practice, he balanced the case on the rim so that the first lurch of the train catapulted the thing down squarely on the woman’s hat, snapping a shiny, hard black quill in two.

“I must say!” she sputtered, rising angrily.  “Who put that up there?  If anything goes in that rack, it will be some of my things.  I paid for this seat.”

She set the suitcase out into the aisle with a decided bang, and lifted up the wicker lunch basket.  To the glee of the watching young people, as she lifted it to the rack, two china cups, several teaspoons and a silver cream jug sifted down.  The cups broke on the floor and the other articles rolled under the seats.

“Get ’em, quick!” cried the owner.  “My two best cups broken, and I thought I had them packed so well!  Pick up those teaspoons, some of you—­they’re solid silver!”

“If you don’t mind boys pawing them—­” began Teddy Tucker, but Betty intervened.

“Oh, don’t!” she protested softly.  “Don’t be so mean.  Pick them up, please do.”

So down on their hands and knees went the six lads, and if, in their earnestness, they bumped into the elderly woman’s hat box, and knocked down her books, that really should not be held against them.

“Now for mercy’s sake, don’t let me hear from you again,” was her speech of thanks to them when the teaspoons had been recovered and restored to her.

She might have been severely left alone after this, if Sydney Cooke had not discovered a remarkable peculiarity she possessed.  Sydney was a great lover of games, and he had brought his pocket checkerboard and men with him.  He persuaded Winifred Marion Brown to play a game with him, and the rest of the party crowded around to watch.

“I’ll trouble you to let me pass,” said the owner of the teaspoons, when Sydney had just made his first play.

The group parted to let her through, closed in again, and opened again for her when she came back.  No one paid any attention to this until she had made the request four times.

“What ails that woman?” demanded Sydney irritably.