CHAPTER IX
ADJUSTER TOMMY
"I'm Salsette born!" trilled Tommy Tucker soulfully.
"And Salsette bred!" chimed in his brother
"And when I die——" caroled Tommy.
"I'll be Salsette dead!" they finished together.
Then, highly satisfied with this intelligible ditty, they burst into the car where the others were waiting for them.
The boys had appropriated the seats at the forward end of the car, and unfortunately their selection included a seat in which an elderly, or so she seemed to them, woman sat. She fidgeted incessantly, folding and unfolding her long traveling coat, opening and closing a fitted lunch basket, and arranging and re-arranging several small unwieldy parcels and heavy books that slid persistently to the floor with the jarring of the train. When the conductor came through for tickets, she discovered that she had mislaid hers and it was necessary to flutter the pages of every book before the missing bit of pasteboard finally
