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Three Men and a Maid
By P. G. WODEHOUSE
Copyright by George H. Doran Cos.
WILL YOU?"
Mrs Horace Hignett. world
famous writer on theosophy, au
thor of "The Spreading Light,
etc. etc., arrives In New York on
a lecturing tour. Eustace, her
son is with her. Wlndles, ances
tral home of the Hlgnetts. Is his
so her life is largely devoted to
keeping him unmarried. Enter
her nephew, Sam. son of Sir Mai
la by Marlowe, the eminent Lon
don lawyer. It Is arranged that
Sam and Eustace shall sail to
-ether on the Atlantic the next
day. Enter Bream Mortimer,
American, son of a friend of! an
Insufferable American
Rennett, who has been
Mrs. Illgnett to lease kindles,
Bream Informs her that: Wil
helmlna Bennett is waiting for
Eustace at the Little Church
Round the Corner. Bream him
self is in love with Wilhelmina.
Mrs. Hignett marches oft tojpus
tace's room. The scene shifts
to the Atlantic at her pier. Sam,
beading for the gangplank meets
a glorious, red-headed girl, with
whom he Instantly falls In love,
though her dog bites him. Eus
tace appears, heart-broken. it
appears that : hts mother had
"pinched his trousers" and de
layed the ceremony, whereupon
Wilhelmina had declared the wed
ding off. Sam Is pushed over
board. has a desperate struggle
in the water with another swim
mer and rejoins the Atlantic at
quarantine. The red-headed girl
is Wilhelmina Bennett —“Billie.”
She hails Sam as a hero and in
troduces Bream. Eustace, a poor
sailor, keeps to his berth. H©
doesn’t know Billie is on board.
Sam makes warm love.
CHAPTER IV—Continued.
—6—
“Sorry! Tlie sun Is shining bright
er than it has ever shone in the his
tory of the race. Why don’t you get
up?”
• “Nothing will induce ine to get up.”
“Well, go a regular buster and have
an egg for breakfast.”
Eustace Hignett shuddered.
“Do you think I am an ostrich?”
He eyed Sara sourly. “You seem dev
ilish pleased with yourself this morn
ing !”
Sam dried the razor carefully and
put it away. He hesitated. Then the
desire to confide in somebody got the
better of him.
“The fact is,” he said apologetically,
“I'm in love I”
“In love!” Eustace Hignett sat np
ouct bumped his head sharply against
tlie berth above him. “Has this been
going on long?”
“Ever since the voyage started.”
“I think you might have told me.”
said Eustace reproachfully. “I told
you my troubles. Why did you not let
me know that this awful thing had
come upon you?”
"Well, as a matter of fact, old man,
during these last few days I had a
nrtiun that your mind was, so to speak,
■occupied elsewhere.”
“Who Is she?”
"Oil, a girl I met on board."
“Don’t do it!” said Eustace Hignett
solemnly. “As a friend I entreat you
not to do it! Take my advice, as a
man who knows women, and don’t
do it!”
“Don't do what?”
"Propose to her. I can tell by the
fi tter in your eye that you are In
tending to propose to this girl—prob
ably this morning. Don’t do It.
Women are the devil, whether they
m< rry you or Jilt you. Do you realize
thit women wear black evening
dresses that have to be hooked up i'.
a hurry when you are late for the the
ater. and that, out of sheer wanton
malignity, the hooks and eyes on those
dresses are also made black? Do you
realize
“ oh , I’ve thought it all out.”
And take the matter of children,
’ould you like to become the
,at her and a mere glance around you
"ill "how you that tlie chances are
enormously In favor of such a thing
•JPl'vnmg—of a boy with spectacles
an, l Pretruding front teeth who asks
Tiesn, ns all the time? Out of six
Bmnb b °ys whom I saw when I came
ird, four wore spectacles and
r,a 'l teeth like rabbits. The other two
pere equally revolting in different
How would you like to be
come the father . . .
1 8 no need t> be Indelicate,”
m stiffly, “a man must take
these rhances,”
hep the miss.” mg
- • Day down here for the rest
voyage. You can easily dodge
V f "? JOU to Southampton.
■ ne sends messages, say you’re
1 81 ;' 1 c n’t be disturbed."
,< - a7 ;' %d at hi m. revolted. More
ft : be - an to understand how
( ; tha a girl with ideals had
man til V'fv eDgasement with this
e K at ! '!ur, f ‘ n L She< ? dressin S. am. after
ug breakfast, went on deck.
mo - ' I s . he hud sald - a glorious
I.: .'• L rhe sample which he had
r ’ • . llgb the Porthole had not pre
; or .h, maelc of
e n In a vast bowl of the pur
on an azure carpet flecked
with silver. It was a morning which
impelled a man to great deeds, a morn
ing which shouted to him to chuck his
chest out and be romantic. The sight
of Billie Bennett, trim and gleaming
In a pale green sweater ,nd a white
skirt had the effect of causing Mar
lowe to alter the program which he
had sketched out. Proposing to this
girl was not a thing to be put off till
after lunch. It was a thing to be done
now and at once. The finest efforts
of the finest cooks in the world could
not put him in better form than he
felt at present
"Good morning, Miss Bennett.”
“Good morning, Mr. Marlowe."
“Isn’t it a perfect day?”
“Wonderful!’’
“It makes all the difference on board
ship If the weather is fine."
“Yes, doesn’t It?”
“Shall we walk around?” said Billie.
Sam glanced about him. It was the
time of day when the promenade deck
was always full. Passengers In co
coons of rugs lay on chairs, waiting
in a dull trance till the steward should
arrive with the eleven o’clock soup.
Others, more energetic, strode up and
down. From the point of view of a
man who wished to reveal his most
sacred feelings to a beautiful girl, the
place was practically Fifth avenue and
Forty-second street.
“It’s so crowded,” he said. “Let’s
go onto the upper deck.”
“All right. You can read to me. Go
and fetch your Tennyson.”
Sam felt that fortune was playing
into his hands. His foyr-days’ ac
quaintance with the bard had been suf
ficient to show him that the man was
there forty ways when it came to writ
ing about love. You could open his
collected works almost anywhere and
shut your eyes and dab down your
finger on some red-hot passage. A
proposal of marriage is a thing which
is rather difficult to bring neatly into
the ordinary run of conversation. It
wants leading up to. But, if you once
start reading poetry, especially Ten
nyson's, almost anything is apt to give
you your cue. He bounded light
heartedly into the stateroom, waking
Eustace Hignett from an uneasy doze.
“Now what?” said Eustace.
“Where’s that copy of Tenuyson you
gave me? I left it—ah, here it Is.
Well, see you later!"
“Wait! What are you going to do?”
“Oh, that girl I told you about,” said
Sam, making for the door. “She
wants me to read Tennyson to her on
the upper deck.”
"Tennyson?”
“Yes.”
"On the upper deck?”
“That’s the spot.”
“This Is the end,” said Eustace Hig
nett, turning his face to the wall.
Sam raced up the companionway as
far as it went; then, going out on
deck, climbed a flight of steps and
found himself in the only part of the
ship which was ever even compara
tively private. The main herd of pas
sengers preferred the promenade deck,
two layers below.
He threaded his way through a maze
of boats, ropes and curious-shaped
steel structures which the architect of
the ship seemed to have tacked on at
the last moment in a spirit of sheer
exuberance. Above him towered one
of the funnels, before him a long,
slender mast. He hurried on, and
“How Jolly tor Her. Like Having a
Circus All to Oneself.”
presently came upon Billie sitting on
a garden seat, backed by the white
roof of the sniokeroom; beside this
was a small deck which seemed to
have lost Its way and strayed up here
all by Itself. It was the deck on which
one could occasionally see the patients
playing an odd game with long sticks
and bits of wood —not shuffleboard but
something even lower in the mental
scale. This morning, however, the
devotees of this pastime were appar
ently under proper restraint, for the
deck was empty.
THE DANIELSVILLE MONITOR, DANIELSVILLE, GEORGIA.
“This is jolly,” he said, sitting
down beside the girl and drawing a
deep breath of satisfaction.
“Yes, I love this deck. It’s so
peaceful."
“It’s the only part of the ship where
you can be reasonably sure of not
meeting stout men in flannels and nau
tical caps. An ocean voyage always
makes me wish that I had a private
yacht.’
“It would be nice.”
“A private yacht,” repeated Sam,
sliding a trifle closer. “We would sail
about, visiting desert Islands which
lay like jewels in the heart of tropic
seas.”
“We?”
“Most certainly we. It wouldn’t be
any fun if you were not there.”
“Thnt’s very complimentary.”
“Well, it wouldn’t. I’m not fond of
girls as a rule ...”
“Oh, aren’t you?”
“Nol” said Sam decidedly. It was
a point which he wished to make clear
nt the outset. “Not at nil fond. My
friends have often remarked upon it.
A palmist or.ee told me that I had one
of those rare spiritual natures which
cannot be satisfied with substitutes
but must seek and seek till they find
their soul-mate. When other men nil
round me were frittering away their
emotions In idle flirtations which did
not touch their deeper natures, I wa
... I was . . . well, I wasn't, if
you see what I mean.” ,
“Oh, you wasn’t . . . weren’t —?’’
“No. Some day I knew I should
meet the only girl I could possibly love,
and then I would pour out upon her
the stored-up devotion of n life-time,
lay nn unblemished heart at her feet,
fold her In my arms and say, ‘At
last!’ ”
“How Jolly for her. Like having a
circus all to oneself.”
“Well, yes,” said Sam after a mo
mentary pause.
“When I was a child I always
thought that that would be the most
wonderful thing In the world."
“The most wonderful thing In the
world Is love, a pure and consuming
love, a love which . . .”
”01i, hello 1” said a voice.
All through this scene, right from
the very beginning of it, Sam had not
been able to rid himself of a feeling
that there was something missing. The
time and the place and the girl—they
were all present and correct; never
theless there was something missing,
some familiar object which seemed to
leave a gap. He now perceived that
what had caused the feeling was the
complete absence of Bream Mortimer.
He was absent no longer, lie wus
standing in front of them with one
leg advanced, his head lowered as If
he were waiting for someone to
scratch it. Sum’s primary Impulse was
to offer him a nut.
“Oh, hello, Bream!” said Billie
“Hullo 1” said Sjim.
“Hullo!" said Bream Mortimer.
“Here you are!”
There was a pause.
“I thought you might be here,” said
Bream.
“Yes, here we are,” said Billie.
“Yes, we’re here,” said Sam.
There was another pause.
“Mind if I Join you?” said Bream.
“N-no,” said Sam.
“No,” said Billie again. “No . . .
that is to say ... oh no, not at
all.”
There was a third pause.
“On second thoughts,” said Bream,
"I believe I’ll take n stroll on the
promenade deck, If you don’t mind.”
They said they didn’t mind. Bream
Mortimer, having bumped his head
twice against overhanging steel repes,
melted away.
“Who is that fellow?” demanded
Sam wrathfully."
“He’s the son of father’s best
friend.”
Sam started. Somehow this girl had
always been so individual to him that
he had never thought of her having a
father.
“We have known each other all onr
lives,” continued Billie. “Father thinks
a tremendous lot of Bream. I sup
pose It was because Bream was sail
ing by her that father Insisted on my
coming over on this boat. I’m In dis
grace. you know. I was cabled for
and had to sail at a few days’ no
tice. I . .
“Oh, hello!”
“Why, Bream!" said Billie, looking
at him as lie stood on the old spot In
the same familiar attitude with rather
less affection than the son of her fa
ther’s best friend might have expect
ed. “I thought you said you were
going down to the promenade deck."
“I did go down to the promenade
deck. And I’d hardly got there when
n fellow who’s getting up the ship’s
concert tomorrow night nobbled me
to do a couple of songs. He wanted
to know if I knew anyone else who
would help. I came up to ask you,"
he said to Sam, “if you would do some
thing.”
“No,” said Sam. “I won’t.”
“He’s got a man who’s going to
lecture on deep-sea fish and a conple
of women who both want to sing “The
Rosary,’ but he’s still an act or two
short. Sure you won’t rally round?"
“Quite sure.”
“Oli, all right.” Bream Mortimer
hovered wistfully above theta. “It’s
a great morning, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Sam.
“Oh, Bream!” said Billy.
“Hello?’
“Do be a pet and go and talk to
Jane Hubbard. Fm sure she must be
feeling lonely. I left her all by her
self down on the next deck."
A look of alarm spread itself over
Bream’s face.
“Jane Hubbard 1 Oh, say, have a
heart 1”
“She’s a very nice girl.”
“She's so darned dynnmlc. She
looks at you as if you were n giraffe
or something and she would like to
take a pet at you with a rifle.”
“Nonsense! Run along. Get her
to tell you some of her big-game hunt
ing experiences. They are most in
teresting.”
Bream drifted sadly away.
“I don’t blame Miss Hubbard,” said
Sam.
“What do you mean?”
“Looking at him as If she wanted
to pot at him with a rifle. I should
like to do it myself. What were you
saying when he came up?”
“Oh, don’t let's talk about me. Read
me some Tennyson.”
Sam opened the book very willingly.
Infernal Bream Mortimer had abso
luetly shot to pieces the spell which
had begun to full on them at the be
ginning of their conversation. Only
by reading poetry, it seemed to him,
could it be recovered. And when lie
saw the passage at which the volume
had opened he realized that his luck
was In. Good old Tennyson 1 He was
all right. He had' the stuff. You
could send him to hit In a pinch every
time with the comfortable knowledge
that he would not strike out.
He cleared bis throat.
• v t
"Oh let the solli" ground
Not fall beneath my feet
Befo.-o my life Ims found
What some have found so sweet;
Then let come what come may.
What matter If I go mad,
I shall have had my day.
Let the sweet heavens endure.
Not close and darken above me
Before 1 am quite quite sure
That there Is one to love me. . . .”
This was absolutely topping. It was
like diving off n springboard. lie could
see the girl sitting with a soft smile
on her face, her eyes, big and trenmy,
gazing out over the sunlit s oS. He
laid down the book and took her hnnd.
“There is something,” he begun in
a low voice, “which I have been trying
to say ever since we met, something
which I think you must have rea ' in
my eyes.”
Her head was bent She did not
withdraw her hand.
“Until this voyage began," he went
on, “I did rot know wliat life mean*..
And then I saw you ! It was like the
gate of heaven opening. Y’ou’re the
dearest girl I ever met, and you can
bet I’ll never forget . . ." He
stopped. “I’m not trying to make It
rhyme,” he said apologetically. “Bil
lie, don’t think me silly ... I
mean ... if you had the merest
notion, dearest ... I don’t know
what’s the matter with me . . .
Billie, darling, you are the only girl
in the world! I have been looking for
you for years and years and I have
found you nt Inst, my soul-mate.
Surely this does ,not come us a sur
prise to you? That is, I mean, you
must have seen that I’ve been keen.
. There’s that d— and Walt Mason
stuff again!” His eyes fell on the
volume beside him and he uttered un
exclamation of enlightenment “It’s
those poems,” he cried. “I’ve been
boning them up to such an extent that
they’ve got me doing it, too. What
I’m trying to say is. Will you marry
me?”
She was drooping toward him. Her
face was very sweet and tender, her
eyes misty. He slid an arm about her
wuist. She raised her lips to his.
#•••*••
Suddenly she drew herself away, a
cloud on her face.
“Darling,” she said “I’ve a confes
sion to make.”
“A confession? You? Nonsense 1”
“I can’t get rid of a horribh
thought. I wus wondering If this will
lust.”
“Our love? Don’t be afraid that it
will fade ... I mean . . .
why, it’s so vast It’s hound to last
. . that Is to say, of course it will.’’
“The girl you are engaged to
Is the same girl who promised
to marry me."
65 (TO BE CONTINUED.)
Origin of “Dumdum.”
The hollow-nosed “dumdum” bullets
got their name from the place where
they were manufactured. Dumdum
is a town in British India, In the di
vision of Bengal. It was the head
quarters of the Bengal artillery In the
early eighties. At the Hague confer
ence the use of the bullets was for
bidden by International agreement.
Bejum of Bhopal.
India’s only woman ruler, the Be
gum of Bhopal, has proclaimed pro
hibition In her state. Bhopal has an
area of 6,000 square miles and a popu
lation of about a million.
Sneezing Brought Good Luck.
Our forefathers believed that a
sneeze brought good luck.
Just S~~|
Little^
JJsnSig
WORTH IT
An old Scotsmnn, dictating his will,
said: “I give and bequeath to my
wife the sum of £IOO a year. Is that
writ doon?”
"Yes," said the lawyer; "but she
may marry again. Won’t you make
any chunge In that case? Most people
do.”
“Ah, weel, write again, and say: If
my wife marry again I give and be
quenth to her the sum of £2OO a year.'
That’ll dae eh?”
“Why, thnt’s just double the sum
she would have had If she hnd re
mained unmarried,” said the lawyer.
“It Is usually the other way."
“Aye,” said the Scotsman, “but hhn
that taks her wall deserve it.”
POPULAR MUSIC
Minister—What class of music would
please our congregation best?
Orgunist—The lullaby I think.
Obligations.
Debt could not spoil this life so gay
With Irritating chatter
\f each could Hay, “I cannot pay,"
And thereby end the matter.
Finished Cornetist.
“Fred Jenks Is your neighbor now,
isn’t he?” remarked a man while call
ing on a friend one evening.
“Who did you say?”
“Fred Jenks. I understand he Is
a finished cornetist."
“Is he? Good! Who did it?”
Had No Reproaches.
Wife —Don’t you think It’s n shame
for me to he going to church alone
every Sunday?
Hub —Oh, I don’t know. You might
be doing something worse.
WORSE AND WORSE
Sister —1 wish you wouldn’t butt in
when Charlie’s here, you know how
anxious I am to marry him.
Bobble—That’s what I told him.
Irresponsible Publication.
The paper mark doth hut deceive
The eye that taken a squint.
You're not expected to believe
All that you see In print.
A Little Christening.
Customer —Waiter, do you call this
oyster soup? Why, the oyster In it
Isn’t big enough to flavor It!
Walter —He wasn’t put In to flavor
It, sir. He’s Just supposed to christen
It.
A Real Performance.
“They keep two servants.”
“I wonder how they do it? I have
difficulty getting one to stay longer
>hun two weeks.”
How Benedict Saw It.
She —When we were married yon
itald I was the sun of your existence.
He —Well, you do make It pretty hot
for me sometimes.
Long Time Between Meals.
Housewife —I don’t believe you’ve
washed yourself In the last year.
Trarnt) —You are right, ludy. I wash
inysedf only before I eat.
Papa and His Flivver.
“What’s the trouble?”
“The car won’t run.”
“What’s the matter?”
"Fa’s been fixing It again.”