John C. Hutcheson

Teddy John C. Hutcheson

?I want do d?an?ma!? This sudden and unexpected exclamation, uttered as it was in a shrill little voice like that of a piping bullfinch, and coming from nowhere in particular, as far as he could make out, for he had fancied himself all alone on the platform, made the tall railway porter almost jump out of his skin, as he expressed it, startling him out of his seven senses. He was a stalwart, good-natured, black-bearded giant of a man, clad in a suit of dunduckety-mud-coloured velveteens, rather the worse for wear, and smeary with oil and engine-grease, which gave them a sort of highly-burnished appearance resembling that of a newly-polished black-leaded stove. Doing nothing, and thinking of nothing specially, for the three-forty up-train had gone through the station, and it was a good hour yet before the five-ten down express was due, he had been lazily leaning in a half-dreamy and almost dozing state against the side of the booking-office.