“Why, Pop!” cried the eager boy.  “You never told me a word about it.  And you must know this girl.”

Mr. Ravell Bulson only grunted and scowled.

“What’s your name, girl?” cried the boy, curiously.

“I am Nan Sherwood,” the girl said, kissing him and then giving him a gentle push toward his father’s outstretched and impatient hand.  “If I don’t see you again I shall often think of you.  Be good to Buster.”

“You must tell me about being snowed up, Pop,” urged little Junior, as Nan turned away.  “And I like that girl.”

“That isn’t much to tell—­and I don’t like her—­nor any of her name,” snapped Mr. Bulson.

“But you’ll tell me about the snowed-up train?”

“Yes, yes!” cried his father, impatiently, anxious to get his lame son away from Nan’s vicinity.  “I’ll tell you all about it.”

Nan was quite sure that the fat man would be ashamed to give his little son the full particulars of his own experience on the stalled train.  The little chap, despite his affliction, was an attractive child and seemed to have inherited none of his father’s unhappy disposition.

“Good bye, Nan Sherwood!” he cried after the girl.  “Come, Buster!  Come, Buster!  My, Pop!  Buster likes that girl!”

“Well, I don’t,” declared the fat man, still scowling at Nan.

“Don’t you?” cried Junior.  “That’s funny.  I like her, and Buster likes her, and you don’t, Pop.  I hope I’ll see you again, Nan Sherwood.”

His father almost dragged him away, the spaniel, on a leash, cavorting about the lame boy.  Nan was amazed by the difference in the behavior of Mr. Bulson and his afflicted son.

“And won’t he be surprised when he learns that it wasn’t Papa Sherwood, after all, but that wicked negro porter, who stole his wallet and watch?” Nan mused.  “I hope they find the man and punish him.  But—­it really does seem as though Mr. Bulson ought to be punished, too, for making my father so much trouble.”

Later “Nosey” Thompson was captured; but he had spent all Mr. Bulson’s money in a drunken spree, and while intoxicated had been robbed of the watch.  So, in the end, the quarrelsome fat man, who had so maligned Mr. Sherwood and caused him so much trouble, recovered nothing—­not even his lost temper.

“Which must be a good thing,” was Bess Harley’s comment.  “For if I had a temper like his, I’d want to lose it—­and for good and all!”

“But there must be some good in that fat man,” Nan said, reflectively.

“Humph!  Now find some excuse for him, Nan Sherwood!” said her chum.

“No.  Not an excuse.  He maligned Papa Sherwood and I can’t forgive him.  But his little boy thinks the world of him, I can see; and Mr. Bulson is very fond of the little boy—­’Junior,’ as he calls him.”

“Well,” quoth Bess, “so does a tiger-cat love its kittens.  He’s a gouty, grumpy old fellow, with an in-growing grouch.  I couldn’t see a mite of good in him with a spyglass.”