Charlevoix County Herald

SYNOPSIS.

Lieut. Harry Mallory is ordered to the Philippines. He and Marjorie Newton decide to elope, but wreck of taxicab prevents their seeing minister on the way to the train. Transcontinental train is taking on passengers. Porter has a lively time with an Englishman and Ira Lathrop, a Yankee business man. The elopers have an exciting time getting to the train. "Little Jimmie" Wellington, bound for Reno to get a divorce, boards train in maudlin condition. Later Mrs. Jimmie appears. She is also bound for Reno with same object. Likewise Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb. Latter blames Mrs. Jimmie for her marital troubles. Classmates of Mallory decorate bridal berth. Rev. and Mrs. Temple start on a vacation. They decide to cut loose and Temple removes evidence of his calling. Marjorie decides to let Mallory proceed alone, but train starts while they are lost in farewell. Passengers join Mallory's classmates in giving couple wedding hazing. Marjorie is distracted. bachelor discovers an old sweetheart.

Ira Lathrop, woman-hating Anne Gattle, a fellow passenger. Mallory vainly hunts for a preacher among the passengers. Mrs. Wellington hears Little Jimmie's voice. Later she meets Mrs. Whitcomb. Mallory reports to Marjorie his failure to find a preacher. They decide to pretend a quarrel and Mallory finds a vacant berth. Mrs. Jimmie discovers Wellington on the train. Mallory again makes an unsuccessful hunt for a preacher. Dr. Temple poses as a physician. Mrs. Temple is induced by Mrs. Wellington to smoke a cigar. Sight of preacher on a station platform raises Mallory's hopes, but he takes another train. Missing hand baggage compels the couple to borrow from passengers.

CHAPTER XXI-(Continued).

The first one they labored at, they could not budge after a biceps-breaking tug. The second flew up with such ease that they went over backward. Ashton put his head out and announced that the approaching depot was labelled "Green River." Wellington burbled:

"What a beautiful name for a shtation."

Ashton announced that there was something beautifuller still on the platform-"Oh, a peach!-a nectarine! and she's getting on this train."

Even Doctor Temple declared that she was a dear little thing, wasn't she?

Wellington pushed him aside, saying:

"Stand back Doc, and let me see; I have a keen sense of beau'ful."

"Be careful," cried the doctor, "he'll fall out of the window."

"Not out of that window." Ashton sagely observed, seeing the bulk of Wellington. As the train started off again, Little Jimmie distributed alcoholic smiles to the Green Riverers on the platform and called out:

"Good'bye, ever'body. You're all abslootly-ow- ow!" He clapped his hand to his eye and crawled back into the car, groaning with pain.

"What's the matter?" said Wedgewood.

"Got something in your eye?"

"No, you blamed fool. I'm trying to look through my thumb."

"Poor fellow!" sympathized Doctor Temple, "it's a cinder!"

"A cinder! It's at leasht a ton of coal."

"I say, old boy, let me have a peek," said Wedgewood, screwing in his monocle and peering into the depths of Wellington's eye. "I can't see a bally thing."

"Of course not, with that blinder on," growled the miserable wretch, weeping in spite of himself and rubbing his smarting orb.

"Don't rub that eye," Ashton counselled, "rub the other eye."

"It's my eye; I'll rub it if I want to. Get me a doctor, somebody. I'm dying."

"Here's Doctor Temple," said Ashton, "right on the job."

Wellington turned to the old clergyman with pathetic trust, and the deceiver writhed in his disguise. The best he could think of was:

"Will somebody lend me a lead pencil?"

"What for?" said Wellington, uneasily.

"I am going to roll your upper lid up on it," said the Doctor.

"Oh, no, you're not," said the patient.

"You can roll your own lids!"

Then the conductor, still another conductor, wandered on the scene and asked as if it were not a world-important matter: "What's the matter-pick up a cinder?"

"Yes. Perhaps you can get it out," the alleged doctor appealed.

The conductor nodded: "The best way is this-take hold of the winkers."

"The what?" mumbled Wellington.

"Grab the winkers of your upper eyelid in your right hand—"

"I've got 'em."

"Now grab the winkers of your lower eyelid in your lefthand. Now raise the right hand, push the under lid under the overlid and haul the overlid over the underlid; when you have the overlid well over the under—"

Wellington waved him away: "Say, what do you think I'm trying to do? stuff a mattress? Get out of my way. I want my wife—lead me to my wife."

"An excellent idea," said Dr. Temple, who had been praying for a reconciliation.

He guided Wellington with difficulty to the observation room and, finding Mrs. Wellington at the desk as usual, he began: "Oh, Mrs. Wellington, may I introduce you to your husband?"

Mrs. Wellington rose haughtily, caught a sight of her suffering consort and ran to him with a cry of "Jimmie!"

"Lucretia!"

"What's happened—are you killed?"

"I'm far from well. But don't worry. My life insurance is paid up."

"Oh, my poor little darling," Mrs. Jimmie fluttered, "What on earth ails you?" She turned to the doctor. "Is he going to die?"

"I think not," said the doctor. "It's only a bad case of cinder-in-the-eye-tis."

Thus reassured, Mrs. Wellington went into the patient's eye with her handkerchief. "Is that the eye?" she asked.

"No!" he howled. "the other one."

She went into that and came out with the cinder.

"There! It's just a tiny speck."

Wellington regarded the mote with amazement. "Is that all? It felt as if I had Pike's Peak in my eye." Then he waxed tender, "Oh, Lucretia, how can I ever"

But she drew away with a disdainful: "Give me back my hand, please."

"Now, Lucretia," he protested, "don't you think you're carrying this pretty far?"

"Only as far as Reno," she answered grimly, which stung him to retort:

"You'd better take the beam out of your own eye, now that you've taken the cinder out of mine," but she, noting that they were the center of interest, observed: "All the passengers are enjoying this, my dear. You'd better go back to the cafe."

Wellington regarded her with a revulsion to wrath. He thundered at her: "I will go back, but allow me to inform you, my dear madam, that I'll not drink another drop—just to surprise you."

Mrs. Wellington shrugged her shoulders at this ancient threat and Jimmie stumbled back to his lair, whither the men followed him. Feeling sympathy in the atmosphere, Little Jimmie felt impelled to pour out his grief:

"Jellmen, I'm a brok'n-heartless man. Mrs. Well'n'ton is a queen among women, but she has temper of tarant—"

Wedgewood broke in: "I say, old boy, you've carried this ballast for three days now, wherever did you get it?"

Wellington drew himself up proudly for a moment before he slumped back into himself. "Well, you see, when I announced to a few friends that I was about to leave Mrs. Well'n'ton forever and that I was going out to—to you know."

"Reno. We know. Well?"

"Well, a crowd of my friends got up a farewell sort of divorce breakfast—and some of 'em felt so very sad about my divorce that they drank a little too much, and the rest of my friends felt so very glad about my divorce, that they drank a little too much. And, of course, I had to join both parties."

"And that breakfast," said Ashton, "lasted till the train started, eh?"

Wellington glowered back triumphantly. "Lasted till the train started? Jellmen, that breakfast is going yet!"

CHAPTER XXII.

In the Smoking Room.

Wellington's divorce breakfast reminded Ashton of a story. Ashton was one of the great That-Reminds-Me family. Perhaps it was to the credit of the Englishman that he missed the point of this story, even though Jimmie Wellington saw it through his fog, and Dr. Temple turned red and buried his eyes in the eminently respectable pages of the Scientific American.

Ashton and Wellington and Fosdick exchanged winks over the Britisher's stare of incomprehension, and Ashton explained it to him again in words of one syllable, with signboards at all the different spots.

Finally a gleam of understanding broke over Wedgewood's face and he tried to justify his delay.

"Oh, yes, of cawse I see it now. Yes, I rather fancy I get you. It's awfully good, isn't it? I think I should have got it before but I'm not realfy myself; for two mawnings I haven't had my 'tub.'"

Wellington shook with laughter: "If you're like this now, what will you be when you get to Sin san frasco—I mean Frinsansisco—well, you know what I mean."

Ashton reached round for the electric button as if he were conferring a favor:

"The drinks are on you, Wedgewood. I'll ring." And he rang.

"Awf'lly kind of you," said Wedgewood, "but how do you make that out?"

"The man that misses the point, pays for the drinks." And he rang again. Wellington protested.

"But I've jolly well paid for all the drinks for two days."

Wellington roared: "That's another point you've missed." And Ashton rang again, but the pale yellow individual who had always answered the bell with alacrity did not appear.

"Where's that infernal buffet waiter?" grumbled.

Wedgewood began to titter. "We were out of Scotch, so I sent him for some more."

"When?"

"Two stations back. I fancy we must have left him behind."

"Well, why in thunder didn't you say so?" Ashton roared.

"It quite escaped my mind." Wedgewood grinned. "Rather good joke on you fellows, what?"

"Well, I don't see the point," Ashton growled, but the triumphant Englishman howled: "That's where you pay!"

Wedgewood had his laugh to himself, for the others wanted to murder him. Ashton advised a lynching, but the conductor arrived on the scene in time to prevent violence.

Fosdick informed him of the irretrievable loss of the useful buffet waiter. The conductor promised to get another at Ogden.

Ashton wailed: "Have we got to sit here and die of thirst till then?"

The conductor refused to "back up for a coon," but offered to send in a sleeping-car porter as a temporary substitute.

As he started to go, Fosdick, who had been incessantly consulting his watch, checked him to ask: "Oh, conductor, when do we get to the state line of dear old Utah?"

"Dear old Utah!" the conductor grinned. "We'd 'a' been there already if we hadn't a' fell behind a little."

"Just my luck to be late," Fosdick moaned.

"What you so anxious to be in Utah for, Fosdick?" Ashton asked suspiciously. "You go on to 'Frisco, don't you?"

Fosdick was evidently confused by the direct question. He tried to dodge it: "Yes, but—funny how things have changed. When we started, nobody was speaking to anybody except his wife, now—"

"Now," said Ashton, drily, "everybody's speaking to everybody except his wife."

"You're wrong there." Little Jimmie interrupted. "I wasn't speaking to my wife in the first place. We got on as strangers and we're strangers yet. Mrs. Well'n'ton is a—"

"A queen among women, we know! Dry up," said Ashton, and then they heard the querulous voice of the porter of their sleeping car: "I tell you I don't know nothin' about the buffet business."

The conductor pushed him in with a gruff command. "Crawl in that cage and get busy."

Still the porter protested: "Mista Pullman engaged me for a sleepin' car, not a drinkin' car. I'm a berth maker, not a mixer." He cast a resentful glance through the window that served also as a bar, and his whole tone changed: "Say, is you goin' to allow me loose amongst all them beautiful bottles? Say, man, if you do, I can't guarantee my con—duck."

"If you even sniff one of those bottles," the conductor warned him, "I'll crack it over your head."

"That won't worry me none—as long as my mouf's open." He smacked his chops over the prospect of intimacy with that liquid treasury.

"Lordy! Well, I'll try to control my emotions—but remember, I don't guarantee nothin'."

The conductor started to go, but paused for final instructions:

"And remember—after we get to Utah we can't serve any hard liquor at all."

"What's that? Don't they 'low nothin' in that old Utah but ice-cream soda?"

"That's about all. If you touch a drop, I'll leave you in Utah for life."

"Oh, Lordy. I'll be good!"

The conductor left the excited black and went his way. Ashton was the first to speak:

"Say, Porter, can you mix drinks?"

The porter ruminated, then confessed: "Well, not on the outside, no sir. If you-all is thirsty you better order the simplest things you can think of. If you want to command anything fancy, Lord knows what you'd get. Supposin' you was to say, 'Gimme a Tom Collins.' I'd be just as liable as not to pass you a Jack Johnson.'"

"Well, can you open beer?"

"Oh, I'm a natural born beer opener."

"Rush it out then. My throat is as full of alkali dust as these windows."

The porter soon appeared with a tray full of cotton-topped glasses. The day was hot and the alkali dust very oppressive, and the beer was cold. Dr. Temple looked on it when it was amber, and suffered himself to be bullied into taking a glass.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)