of Venice long before it breaks."

Helena choked--and began to laugh deliciously.

Doc Madison stared at her for a moment whimsically--then he, too, burst
into a laugh.

"Oh, Lord!" he gurgled. "It's rich, isn't it?" And sweeping Helena off
the couch and into his arms, he began to dance around and around the
table. "Ring-around-a-rosy!" he cried. "We haven't done so bad in the
misty past, but here's where we cross to the enchanted shore and play on
jewelled harps with golden strings and--"

"Is that all?" gasped Helena, laughing and breathless, as at last she
pulled herself away.

"No," panted Doc Madison. "There's a table I've reserved up at the
Rivoli that's waiting for us now. We're about to part for days and days,
lady mine, that's the tough luck of it, but we'll make a night of it
to-night anyway--what?"

"You bet!" said Helena, doing a cake-walk towards the door. "Come on!"

--III--

NEEDLEY

"Needley?"

It wasn't wholly an interrogation--it seemed to Madison that there was
even sympathy in the parlor-car conductor's voice, as the other took his
seat check.

"Health," said Madison meekly. "Perfect rest and quiet--been overdoing
it, you know."

"_Needley_!"--the train conductor of the Bar Harbor Express, collecting
the transportation, threw the word at Madison as though it were a
personal affront.

The tone seemed to demand an apology from Madison--and Madison
apologized.

"Health," he said apologetically. "Perfect rest and quiet--been
overdoing it, you know."

"We're five minutes late now," grunted the conductor uncompromisingly
and, to Madison, quite irrelevantly, as he passed on down the aisle.

Somehow, this inspired Madison to consult his timetable. He drew it from
his pocket, ran his eye down the long list of stations--and stopped at
"Needley." Needley had an asterisk after it. By consulting a block of
small type at the bottom of the page, he found a corresponding asterisk
with the words: "Flag station. Stops only on signal, or to discharge
eastbound passengers from Portland."

John Garfield Madison went into the smoking compartment of the car for a
cigar--several cigars--until Needley was reached some two hours later,
when the dusky attendant, as he pocketed Madison's dollar, set down his
little rubber-topped footstool with a flourish on a desolate and
forbidding-looking platform.

Madison was neither surprised nor dismayed--the parlor-car conductor,
the train conductor and