izer
works, and the charming new abattoir. Seeing me off for the most
practical of reasons, such gentlemen are invariably efficient. They
provide an equipage, and there have even been times when, in the final
hurried moments, they have helped me to jam the last things into my
trunks and bags. One of them politely takes my suitcase, another kindly
checks my baggage, and all in order that a third, who is usually the
secretary of the chamber of commerce, may regale me with inspiring
statistics concerning the population of "our city," the seating capacity
of the auditorium, the number of banks, the amount of their clearings,
and the quantity of belt buckles annually manufactured. When the train
is ready we exchange polite expressions of regret at parting:
expressions reminiscent of those little speeches which the King of
England and the Emperor of Germany used to make at parting in the old
days before they found each other out and began dropping high explosives
on each other's roofs.

Such a committee, feeling no emotion (except perhaps relief) at seeing
me depart, may be useful. Not so with friends and loved ones. Useful as
they may be in the great crises of life, they are but disturbing
elements in the small ones. Those who would die for us seldom check our
trunks.

By this I do not mean to imply that either of the two delightful
creatures who came to the Pennsylvania Terminal to bid me good-by would
die for me. That one has lived for me and that both attempt to regulate
my conduct is more than enough. Hardly had I alighted from my taxicab,
hardly had the redcap seized my suitcase, when, with sweet smiles and a
twinkling of daintily shod feet, they came. Fancy their having arrived
ahead of me! Fancy their having come like a pair of angels through the
rain to see me off! Enough to turn a man's head! It did turn mine; and I
noticed that, as they approached, the heads of other men were turning
too.

Flattered to befuddlement, I greeted them and started with them
automatically in the direction of the concourse, forgetting entirely the
driver of my taxicab, who, however, took in the situation and set up a
great shout--whereat I returned hastily and overpaid him.

This accomplished, I rejoined my companions and, with a radiant
dark-haired girl at one elbow and a blonde, equally delectable, at the
other, moved across the concourse.

How gay they were as we strolled along! How amusing were their
prophecies of adventures de