When the train came he greeted the conductor by his Christian name, and chatted with his son until it started.

Then he stepped casually aboard and surrendered himself to its will.

He had wanted suddenly to go somewhere on a train, and now he was going.

"Got to see a man in San Diego," he had told the boy.

"I'll drop back some of these days." "Maybe you'll see the gypsies again," said Wilbur a bit wistfully.
But he was not cast down by his father's going; that was a thing that happened or not, like bad weather.