PS: Divide the change from this five dollars among you as tips. L.H.

And so you look down at young Mister Holden and get a feeling of
vicarious pleasure. You stamp his ticket and hand it to him with a
gesture. You point out the train-gate he is to go through, and you tell
him that he is to sit in the third railroad car. As he leaves, you pick
up the telephone and call the station-master, the conductor, and since
you can't get the dining-car steward directly, you charge the conductor
with passing the word along.

Then you divide the change. Of the two-fifty, you extract a dollar,
feeling that the Senior Holden is a cheapskate. You slip the other buck
and a half into an envelope, ready for the conductor's hand. He'll think
Holden Senior is more of a cheapskate, and by the time he extracts his
cut, the dining car steward will _know_ that Holden Senior is a
cheapskate. But--

Then a face appears at your window and barks, "Holyoke, Mass.," and your
normal day falls back into shape.

The response of the people you tell about it varies all the way from
outrage that anybody would let a kid of five go alone on such a dangerous
mission to loud bragging that he, too, once went on such a journey, at
four and a half, and didn't need a note.

But Jimmy Holden is gone from your window, and you won't know for at
least another day that you've been suckered by a note painstakingly
typewritten, letter by letter, by a five-year-old boy who has a most
remarkable vocabulary.