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Show MYSTERY --IS BABE MARRIED? "Sometime This AVeek" Says Sultan of Swat; But Fans Are Skeptical NEW YORK, April 16. CE Babe Ruth may or mav not be" a married man by nightfall. Babe says he is still single, but he denied his engagement to Mrs. Claire Htsdgson almost an hour before be-fore they walked in the marriage license bureau yesterday, so friends are raising skeptical eyebrows when Ruth tells them the marriage won't come off until "some day this week." Enter Babe a"d Blonde Clerks in the license bureau were closing their ledgers yesterday afternoon af-ternoon when Ruth entered with a demure blonde, who hardly reached fc his shoulders, clinging to his arm. "We want a license," Ruth said to City Clerk Michael Cruise. ' After they had filled out the blank and handed it back, it showed show-ed that the future Mrs. Ruth was 28 years old, mother of a daughter by her first marriage. Frank Hodgson, Hodg-son, her husband, died in 1924. Everyone knew immediately, of course, that she was the former Clara Merritt, daughter of an v,,, u. mciijiL, uaugmui ui an Athens, Ga., lawyer and one of the more familiar figures in the Zieg-feld Zieg-feld Follies of days gone by. Last night Mrs. Hodgson and Ruth attended the theater, and the Babe, a bulking figure in his evening eve-ning clothes and white gardenia, stood by nervously while photographers photog-raphers begged for a chance. "Hurry It Up" "All right, btjys," bellowed the Babe, "but hurry it up. The little lady is afraid of those flashlights." The romance started eight years ago when Mrs. Hodgson first be-j be-j came interested in baseball and began be-gan attending the games regularly. |