It came to his feet.  He buttoned it up, drew a jaunty crush cap from one of its pockets, and grinned pleasantly into the face of the petrified Peter Pope.

“See here!” blurted out the Cardysville express agent, “this isn’t—­isn’t regular.  It isn’t schedule, you know.”

“I hope not—­sincerely,” airily retorted the stranger.  “Fifty miles on a slow train, three hours waiting in a close trunk.  Ah, no.  But I’ve arrived.  Ha, ha, that’s so!”

He glanced into the trunk.  Its bottom seemed covered with some coarse burlap.  Professor Rigoletto threw shut the cover.

“Aha!” he said suddenly, bending his ear as a strain of distant circus music floated on the air.  “Show on, I’ll be late.  I’ll call later—­”

“No, you don’t!” interrupted Pope, recovering from his fright, and placing his bulky form in the doorway.

“Don’t what, my friend?” mildly asked the Professor.

“Deadhead—­beat the express company.  You’re one trunk—­and excess weight.”

“I don’t dispute it.  What, then?”

“Pay,” promptly and definitely announced the agent.

“Can’t.  Haven’t a cent.  That’s why I had to get a friend to ship me this way.  But he said he’d wire ahead to my partner with the circus, who would call for me here.  I’ll go and find him, and settle the bill.”

“You don’t leave here until those charges are paid.  You want to be rapid, too,” declared Pope, “or I’ll see if the railroad company don’t want to collect fare, as well.”

“Want to keep me here, eh?” murmured the Professor thoughtfully.  “Well, I’m agreeable, only you’ll have to feed and bed me.  If I’m live stock, I demand live-stock privileges, see?”

The express agent looked worried.

“What am I to do?” he asked, in a quandary, of Bart.

“Oh,” smiled Bart, “I guess you had better trust him to find his friend and come back with the money.”

“I’ll hold the trunk, anyway,” observed Pope.  “What have you got in it?  Some old worthless togs, I suppose.”

“Mistake—­about a thousand dollars in value,” coolly retorted the Professor.

“Yes, you have!  I thought so.  Some old burlap.”

“Careful, my friend!” spoke the deadhead sharply.  “There’s nothing there that you will care to see.”

“Isn’t there?  I’ll investigate, just the same,” declared Pope, throwing back the trunk cover and delving in the heap of burlap.  “Murder!  Help!”

Peter Pope uttered a fearful yell.  He backed from the trunk suddenly, A sinuous, hissing form had risen up before his face.

This was an enormous cobra, and, under the circumstances, very frightful to see.  The Cardysville express agent made a headlong bolt for the door.  He slid clear outside across the platform, and landed in the mud of the road.

“Prt! prt!  Caesar, so—­so!” spoke Professor Rigoletto in a peculiar, purring tone, approaching the serpent.