when one travels." Then I'd be presented to
the aunt; and after that was over, why it would be just a romp down the
home stretch, with yours truly all the entry in sight. Simply a case of
me and Vee promenadin' the deck by moonlight for hours and hours, and
gettin' to be real old friends.

But pipe dreams like that don't often come true, do they? I ain't got so
far as ownin' a pair of gray gloves, and not a word has been said about
makin' me vice president, when along comes this foreign picture
postcard, showin' the Boss de Bologna on one side, and on the other this
scribbled message:

We sail for home on the 10th. Rah! Rah! Count Schlegelhessen is
coming over with us. He's a dear. V. A. H.

Jolted! Say, I was up and down so many times durin' the next few hours
I'd most meet myself comin' and goin'. Miss Vee was on her way over! I'd
bounce at that thought, and get all kind of warmed up inside. Count
Schutzenfest is coming with her, and he's a dear! Bang! I'd strike
bottom again, with a chilly feelin' under my vest.

Wa'n't anything more'n I might have looked for, of course. Aunty's one
of the kind that would pick out a Count for Miss Vee, and there was
plenty of Counts over there to be picked; but somehow I couldn't picture
Vee goin' wild over one of them foreign ginks. It was clear she had,
though. There it was on the postcard, "He's a dear!"

"Huh!" thinks I. "Most of 'em are dear--at any price."

It wa'n't for hours, either, that I simmers down enough for the thought
to strike me that I didn't have any special license to hold a court of
inquiry over whether Miss Vee was comin' back with a Count or not. After
that I had time to debate with myself whether I ought just to forgive
and forget, goin' through life cold and sad; or if I should hide my
busted heart the best way I could and pretend I didn't care.

Was there any use in my goin' down to the pier and standin' in the
background to watch her come ashore with her dear Count? I could see
myself! Oh, yes, I had it all doped out along them lines! As Robert
Mantell would put it over, "She has went out of muh life for-r-r-rever."
Ah yes! I could have stood for anything but one of them sausage Counts.

So I stows her picture away in the bottom bureau drawer, burns the
postcard, and dodges Zenobia's eye when she looks at me curious. It was
all over. Yet I knew to an hour when her steamer would dock, and the
mornin' of the day it was due I rolls out of th