ass of steaming humanity. Talk
was mercifully impossible. Only once Michael spoke, when he got up to
give his place to a thin girl in a soiled middy blouse.

"You could be getting out at the next, you know, to fill your lungs with
decent air, and go on in the bus----"

She shook her head and smiled very reasonably. She fixed her eyes on a
vehement advertisement in shrieking colors and tried to see how many
small words she could make out of the large one. "L-i-n-e, line, and
L-i-s-t, list"--(she would go into the leading lady's dressing room and
do her hair and put some color in her cheeks before she saw Rodney. Good
old Rodney! He had been faithful, as faithful and patient as Marty
Wetherby!)--"i-n, in, and r-i-"--the car was plunged into swift darkness
and the train shrieked and jolted to a dead stop.

The girl to whom Michael had given his seat jumped up and began to emit
short, gasping screams.

"There's no harm at all," said Daragh, pushing her back into her seat.
"The lights will be on again in two flips of a dead lamb's tail!"

The crowd took it good-naturedly enough. There were whistles and catcalls
from one end of the car and a noisy imitation of a kiss. Girls giggled
nervously. A man grew querulous: "Where are we? That's all I want to
know. Where are we? If we're near a station, we can get out and walk.
Where _are_ we?"

The minutes dragged. Men hurried by in the outer darkness with lanterns,
dim and ghoulish figures. Some one's foot was trodden on and a surly
scuffle ensued. "Cut that out!" said a sharp voice. "You don't want to
start nothin' here!"

Then the first man began again. "Where _are_ we? That's what I want
to know!" A woman whimpered that she was going to faint.

"Can't!" called a gruff voice, facetiously. "There ain't room!"

But it was immediately evident that she had carried out her program for
there was a shrill cry, "Oh, for God's sake! Get her up! Get her up! Get
her _up_! I'm--I'm _standing_ on her!"

People began to sway and mutter, to push and surge. Jane felt herself
lifted and swung to her feet on the seat where she had been sitting, and
the Irishman's big body was spread like a shield before her. His hands
were clamped upon the thin shoulders of the girl in the middy blouse, but
he twisted his head to speak to Jane. "It will be all right in a wink,"
he said.

"Yes," she answered.

The first man began to shout, "Open this door! Want us to die like rats
in a trap! Open this