About this story
Getting the trunks safely to a hotel takes a barricade, a carriage and some hurried bargaining. Then a crash wakes them before dawn: something is tearing through the parlour outside their sixth-floor rooms.
How it opens
The steamer landed Uncle Moses and four boys at Naples among porters, idlers, and reaching hands.
Frank, three men have taken hold of one trunk, and none of them belongs to us.
Every attempt to explain merely attracted another volunteer to the luggage pile.
Uncle MosesBoys, stand by the baggage until I can discover one word that these people understand.
I planted myself beside Bob with my heels against the largest trunk.
Choose
Bob, guard the straps while I count the cases.
Uncle Moses, let us stack everything behind you.