ging up William pressed her hand
joyously. "Four ribs at least and a compound fracture," he whispered,
swiftly. "You are not sorry that you met me, are you, dearest?

"Me?" said Violet, returning the pressure. "Sure not. I could stand
all day rubbering with you."

The climax of the romance occurred a few days later. Perhaps the
reader will remember the intense excitement into which the city was
thrown when Eliza Jane, a colored woman, was served with a subpoena.
The Rubber Tribe encamped on the spot. With his own hands William Pry
placed a board upon two beer kegs in the street opposite Eliza Jane's
residence. He and Violet sat there for three days and nights. Then it
occurred to a detective to open the door and serve the subpoena. He
sent for a kinetoscope and did so.

Two souls with such congenial tastes could not long remain apart. As
a policeman drove them away with his night stick that evening they
plighted their troth. The seeds of love had been well sown, and had
grown up, hardy and vigorous, into a--let us call it a rubber plant.

The wedding of William Pry and Violet Seymour was set for June 10.
The Big Church in the Middle of the Block was banked high with
flowers. The populous tribe of Rubberers the world over is rampant
over weddings. They are the pessimists of the pews. They are the
guyers of the groom and the banterers of the bride. They come to
laugh at your marriage, and should you escape from Hymen's tower on
the back of death's pale steed they will come to the funeral and sit
in the same pew and cry over your luck. Rubber will stretch.

The church was lighted. A grosgrain carpet lay over the asphalt to
the edge of the sidewalk. Bridesmaids were patting one another's
sashes awry and speaking of the Bride's freckles. Coachmen tied white
ribbons on their whips and bewailed the space of time between drinks.
The minister was musing over his possible fee, essaying conjecture
whether it would suffice to purchase a new broadcloth suit for
himself and a photograph of Laura Jane Libbey for his wife. Yea,
Cupid was in the air.

And outside the church, oh, my brothers, surged and heaved the rank
and file of the tribe of Rubberers. In two bodies they were, with
the grosgrain carpet and cops with clubs between. They crowded like
cattle, they fought, they pressed and surged and swayed and trampled
one another to see a bit of a girl in a white veil acquire license to
go through a man's pockets while he sleeps.