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Show I STORY J Novelized from the Comedy oi the Same Name By ILLUSTRATED Rupert From Pbo4orapha of n , tbe Play aa Produced Hughes By Haory W. Savafa Copyright, inlt b7 a. K. FI7 Co. e SYNOPSIS. Lieut. Harry Mallory is ordered to the Philippines. He and Marjorie Newton decide to elope, but wreck of taxlcab prevents pre-vents their seeing minister on the way to the train. Transcontinental train Is taking tak-ing on passengers. Porter has a lively time with an Englishman and Ira Lath-rop, Lath-rop, a Yankee business man. The aiopers have an exciting time getting to the train. "Little Jlmmle" Wellington, bound Cor Reno to get a divorce, boards train In maudlin condition. Later Mrs. Jimmte appears. She Is also bound for Reno with same object. Likewise Mrs. Sammy Whit-comb. Whit-comb. Latter blames Mrs. Jlmmle for her marital troubles. Classmates of Mallory Mal-lory decorate bridal berth. Rev. and Mrs. Temple start on a vacation. They decide to cut looee and Temple removes evidence of his calling. CHAPTER VIII. A Mixed Pickle. Mrs. Whitcomb had almost blushed when she had murmured to Lieutenant Lieuten-ant Hudson: "I should think the y-oung couple would have preferred a stateroom." - And Mr. Hudson had flinched a little lit-tle as he explained: "Yes, of course. We tried to get it, but it was gone." It was during the excitement over the decoration of the bridal section, that the stateroom-tenants slipped in unobserved. First came a fluttering woman whose youthful beauty had a certain hue of experience, saddening and wisering. The porter brought her in from the station-platform, led her to the stateroom's concave door, and passed In with her luggage. But she lingered without, a Peri at the gate of Paradise. When the porter returned re-turned to bow her in, she shivered and hesitated, and then demanded: "Oh, porter, are you sure there's nobody no-body else In there?" The porter chuckled, but humored her panic. "I ain't seen nobody. Shall I look under the seat?" To his dismay, she nodded her head clolently. He rolled his eyes in wonderment, won-derment, but returned to the stateroom, state-room, made a pretense of examination, f.nd came back with a face full of reassurance. re-assurance. "No'm, they's nobody (here. Take a mighty small-size burglar bur-glar to squeeze unda that bald er -oerth. No'm, nobody there." "Oh!" The gasp was so equivocal that he nade bold to ask: "Is you pleased or disappointed?" The mysterious young woman was :oo much agitated to' rebuke the impu-ience. impu-ience. She merely sighed: "Oh, por-;er, por-;er, I'm so anxious." "I'm not now," he muttered, for she handed him a coin. "Porter, have yotr seen anybody on joard that looks suspicious?" "Evv.abody looks suspicious to me, Missy. But what was you expecting especial?" "Oh, porter, have you seen anybody :hat looks like a detective in dis-ruise?" dis-ruise?" . "Well, they's one man looks 's if he ivas disguised as a balloon, but I don't believe he's no slooch-hound." "Well, if you see anybody that looks ike a detective and he asks for Mrs S'osdick " , ".-s. What-dick?" "Mrs. Fosdick! You tell him I'm not on board." And she gave him another coin. "Yassum," said the porter, lingering linger-ing willingly on such fertile soil. "I'll tell him Mrs. Fosdick done give me her word she wasn't on bode." "Yes! and if a woman should ask you." "What kind of a woman?" - 'The hideous kind that men call handsome." "Oh, ain't they hideous, them handsome hand-some women?" "Well, if such a woman asks for Mrs. Fosdick she's my husband's first wife but of course that doesn't Interest you." "No'm yes'm." "If she comes tell her tell her oh, what shall we tell her?" The' porter rubbed his thick skull: "Lemme see we might say you i tell you what we'll tell her: we'll tell her you took the train for New York; and If she runs mighty fast she can just about ketch it." "Fine, fine!" And she rewarded his genius with another coin. "And, porter.'' He had not budged. "Porter, "Por-ter, if a very handsome man with luscious eyes and a soulful smile asks for me " "I'll th'ow him off -the train!" "Oh, no no! that's my husband my present husband. You may let him in. Now is it ail perfectly clear, porter?" "Oh, yassum, clear as clear." Thus guaranteed she entered the stateroom, leaving the porter alone with his problem prob-lem He tried to work It out m a ge- i e mumble: "Lemme see! If your present husband s aDsent wife gits on bode disguised as a handsome hideous woman I'm to throw bim her off the train and let her him come in oh, yassum, you may rely on me." He bowed and held out his hand. But she was gone. He shuffled shuf-fled on into the car. He had hardly left the little space before the stateroom when a handsome hand-some man with luscious eyes, but without any smile at all, came slinking slink-ing along the corridor and tapped cautiously on the door. Silence alone answered him at firsts then when he had rapped again, he heard a muffled: muf-fled: "Go away. I'm not In." He put his lips close and softly called: "Edith!" At this Sesame tne door opened a trifle, but when he tried to enter, a hand thrust him back and a voice again warned him off. "You musn't come in." "But I'm your husband." "That's just why you musn't come In." The door opened a little wider to give him a view of a down-cast beauty moaning: "Oh, Arthur, I'm so afraid." "Afraid?" he sniffed. "With your husband here?" "That's the trouble, Arthur. What if your former wife should find us together?" to-gether?" "But she and I are divorced." 1 "In some states, yes but other states don't acknowledge the divorce. That forrner wife of yours is a fiend to pursue us this way." "She's no worse than your former husband. ..He's pursuing us, too. My divorce was as good as yours, my dear." "Yes, and no better." The ange's looking on might have" judged from the ready tempers of the newly married and not entirely unmarried un-married twain that their new alliance promised to be as exciting as their previous estates. Perhaps the man subtly felt the presence of those eternal eter-nal eavesdroppers, for he tried to end the love-duel In the corridor with an appeasing caress and a tender appeal: ap-peal: "But let's not start our honeymoon honey-moon with a quarrel." His partial wife returned the caress and tried to explain: "I'm not quarreling quar-reling with you, dear heart, but with the horrid divorce laws. Why, oh, why did we ever interfere with them?'" He made a brave effort with: "We ended two unhappy marriages, Edith, to make one happy one." '"But I'm so unhappy, Arthur, and so afraid " He seemed a trifle afraid himself and his gaze was askance as he urged: "But the train will start soon, Edith and then we shall be safe." Mrs. Fosdick had a genius for inventing in-venting unpleasant possibilities. "But what if your former wife or my former for-mer husband should nave a detective on board?" "A detective? poof!" He snapped his 'fingers in bravado. "You are with your husband, aren't you?'' "In Illinois, yes," she admitted, very dolefully. "But when we come to Iowa, I'm a bigamist, and when we come to Nebraska, you're a bigamist, biga-mist, and when we come to Wyoming, we're not married at all." It was certainly a tangled web they had woven, but a ray of light shot through it into his bewildered soul. "But we're all right in Utah. Come, dearest." He took her by the elbow to escort her into their sanctuary, but sll she hung back. "On one condition, Arthur that you leave me as soon as we cross the Iowa state line, and not come back till we get-to Utah. Remember, the Iowa state line!" "Oh, all right," he smiled. And seeing see-ing the porter, beckoned him close and asked with careless indifference: "Oh, porter, what time do we reach the Iowa state line?" "Two fifty-five In the mawning, snh." "Two fifty-five a. m.?" the wretch exclaimed. "Two fifty-five a. m., yassah," the porter repeated, and wondered why this excerpt from the time-table should exert such a dramatic effect on the luscious-eyed Fosdick. He had small time to meditate the puzzle, for the train was about to be launched upon its long voyage. He went out to the platform, and watched a couple making that way. As their only luggage was a dog-basket he supposed sup-posed that they were simply come to bid some of his passengers good-bye. No tips were to be expected from such transients, so he allowed them to help themselves up the steps. Mallory and his Marjorie had tried to kiss the farewell or farewells half a dozen times, but she could not let him go at the gate. She asked the guard to let her through, and htir beauty was bribe enough. Again and again, she and Mallory paused. He wanted to take her back to the taxlcab, but she would not be so dismissed. She must spend the last available second with him. "I'll go as far as the steps of the car," she said. When they were arrived ar-rived there, two porters, a sleeping car conductor and several smoking saunterers protaned tne tryst. So sbfe whispered that she would come aboard, for the corridor would be a quiet lane for the last rites. And now that he had her actually on the train, Mallory's whole soul revolted re-volted against letting ber go. Tnt vision of ber standing on the platform plat-form sad-eyed and lorn, while the train swept him olT into space was unendurable. He shut his eyes ngalnst it, but it glowed Inside the lids. And then temptation whispered him Its old "Why not?" While it was working In his soul like a 'fermenting yeast, he was saying: "To think that Ve should owe ftli 4 our misrortune to an luiernal tarl-cab's tarl-cab's break-down." Out of the anguish or her lonellne s crept one little complaint: "If you had really wanted me, you a have had two taxicabs." "Oh how can you say that? 1 had the license bought and the minister waiting." "He's waiting yet." "nd the ring toere's the ring. He fished it out of his waistcoat pocket pock-et and held it before her as a golden amulet. "A lot of good it does now, said Marjorie. "You won't even wait over till the next train." Tve told you a thousand times, my love" he protested, desperately. "If I don't catch the transport, I'll be court-martialed. court-martialed. If this train is late, I'm lost. If you really loved me you d come along with me." Her very eyes gasped at this astounding as-tounding proposal. "Why, Harry Mallory, you know It s Impossible." Like a sort of benevolent Satan, he laid the ground for his abduction: "You'll leave me, then, to spend three years without you out among those Manila women." f She shook her bead in terror at ' this vision. "It would be too horrible for words to have you marry one ot those mahogany sirens." He held out the apple. "Better come along, then." "But how can I? We're not mar- , , "ied." He answered airily: "Oh, I'm sure there's a minister on jioard." -"But it would be too awful to be married, with all the passengers gawking. gawk-ing. No; I couldn't face it. Goodbye, Good-bye, honey." "1 She turned away, but he caught her arm: "Don't you love me?" 'To distraction. I'll wait for you, too." "Three years is a long wait." i "But I'll wait, if you will." With such devotion he could ot tamper. It was too beautiful to risk or endanger or besmirch with any danger of scandal. He gave up his fantastic project and gathered her Into In-to his arms, crowded her Into his very soul, as he vowed: "I'll wait for you forever and ever and ever." Her arms swept around his neck, and she gave herself up as an exile from happiness, a prisoner of a far-off far-off love: "Good-bye, my husband-to-be." "Good-bye my wife-that-was-to-have-been-and-wlll-be-maybe." "Good-bye." "Good-bye." "Good-bye." "Good-bye." "I must go." "Yes, you must." "One last kiss." "One more one long last kiss." And there, entwited in each other's arms, with lips wedded and eyelids clinched, they dung together, forgetting forget-ting everything past, future or present. pres-ent. Love's anguish made them blind, mute and deaf. They did not hear the conductor crying his "All Aboard!" down the long wall of the train. They did not hear the far-off knell of the bell. They did not hear the porters banging the 4 ! , . Rev. Walter Temple. I vestibules shut. They did not feel the floor sliding out with them. " ' And so the porter found them, engulfed en-gulfed in one embrace, swaying and ' swaying, and no more aware of the Increasing rush of the train than we other passengers on the earth-expresa are aware of its speed through the ether-routes on its ancient schedule. The poTter stood with his box-step In his hand, and blinked and wondered. won-dered. And they did not even know they were observed. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |