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Page 65
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.
He coaxed and forced the big snake back into its warm coverings, and
shut down the trunk cover and clasped it. Bart, highly edified at the
unique incident, followed him outside.
"I'm the Cingalese snake-charmer," explained Professor Rigoletto.
"Sorry, my friend," he observed to the wry-faced Pope, who was busy
scraping the mud from his clothing, "but I told you so."
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