And then the operator said
carelessly, "Doesn't answer." My forehead was wet as I came
out of the booth.
I hope I may never have to re-live the horrors of the next
hour. In spite of my bluff and hearty ways, in times of
trouble I am as reticent as a clam. I was determined to hide
my agony and anxiety from the well-meaning people of the Moose
Hotel. I hurried to the railway station to send a telegram to
the Professor's address in Brooklyn, but found the place
closed. A boy told me it would not be open until the
afternoon. From a drugstore I called "information" in
Willdon, and finally got connected with some undertaker to
whom the Willdon operator referred me. A horrible, condoling
voice (have you ever talked to an undertaker over the
telephone?) answered me that no one by the name of Mifflin had
been among the dead, but admitted that there was one body
still unidentified. He used one ghastly word that made me
shudder--_unrecognizable_. I rang off.
I knew then for the first time the horror of loneliness. I
thought of the poor little man's notebook that I had seen. I
thought of his fearless and lovable ways--of his pathetic
little tweed cap, of the missing button of his jacket, of the
bungling darns on his frayed sleeve.
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