sed, light gray suit and tan
shoes, and with eye-glasses scientifically balanced on his aquiline
nose, was making pointed inquiries into the private plans of the
travelers. _The Daily News_ reporters in Mount Mark always wear
well-creased, light gray suits and tan shoes, and always have
eye-glasses scientifically balanced on aquiline noses. The uninitiated
can not understand how it is managed, but there lies the fact. Perhaps
_The News_ includes these details in its requirements of applicants.
Possibly it furnishes the gray suits and the tan shoes, and even the
eye-glasses. Of course, the reporters can practise balancing them
scientifically,--but how does it happen that they always have aquiline
noses? At any rate, that is the Mount Mark type. It never varies.

The young woman going to Burlington to spend the week-end was
surrounded with about fifteen other young women who had come to "see
her off." She had relatives in Burlington and went there very often,
and she used to say she was glad she didn't have to exchange Christmas
presents with all the "friends" who witnessed her arrivals and
departures at the station. Mount Mark is a very respectable town, be
it understood, and girls do not go to the station without an excuse!

The Adams Express wagon was drawn close to the track, and the agent was
rushing about with a breathless energy which seemed all out of
proportion to his accomplishments. The telegraph operator was gazing
earnestly out of his open window, and his hands were busily moving
papers from one pigeon-hole to another, and back again. Old Harvey
Reel, who drove the hotel bus, was discussing politics with the man who
kept the restaurant, and the baggage master, superior and supremely
dirty, was checking baggage with his almost unendurably lordly air.

This was one of the four daily rejuvenations that gladdened the heart
of Mount Mark.

A man in a black business suit stood alone on the platform, his hands
in his pockets, his eyes wandering from one to another of the strange
faces about him. His plain white ready-made tie proclaimed his calling.

"It's the new Methodist preacher," volunteered the baggage master,
crossing the platform, ostensibly on business bound, but really to see
"who all" was there. "I know him. He's not a bad sort."

"They say he's got five kids, and most of 'em girls," responded the
Adams Express man. "I've ordered me a dress suit to pay my respects in
when they get here