1
Forty Minutes Late, by F. Hopkinson Smith
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Forty Minutes Late, by F. Hopkinson Smith This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Forty Minutes Late 1909
Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23697]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTY MINUTES LATE ***
Produced by David Widger
FORTY MINUTES LATE
By F. Hopkinson Smith
1909
It began to snow half an hour after the train started--a fine-grained, slanting, determined snow that forced its way between the bellows of the vestibules, and deposited itself in mounds of powdered salt all over the platforms and steps. Even the porter had caught some puffs on his depot coat with the red cape, and so had the conductor, from the way he thrashed his cap on the back of the seat in front of mine. "Yes, gettin' worse," he said in answer to an inquiring lift of my eyebrows. "Everything will be balled up if this keeps on."
"Shall we make the connection at Bondville?" I was to lecture fifty miles from Bondville Junction, and had but half an hour lee-way.
If the man with the punch heard, he made no answer. The least said the soonest mended in crises like this. If we arrived on time every passenger would grab his bag and bolt out without thanking him or the road, or the engineer who took the full blast of the storm on his chest and cheeks. If we missed the co