The Monticellonian., 1904-01-14
erinning. Must have been av

clerk, grinning. Must have been aw.. ful anxious to keep the company out of 28 cents to pay a dollar to a cabman to do it.
 Must be drunk or crazy" muttered the bank official to himself as he hur- ried out
 During the brief remainder of the day at the bank the third vice president watched Huston narrowly. That ur conscious person with the humor of tie cab incident uppermost in his mind or tainly did grin and chuckle from tfne to time in manner that gave cola to Wharton's suspicious.
 These suspicious were duly voifd at the daily conference of the offices and they lost nothing in the telling-i IS sus- pieions never do. The upshot as that it was decided to have Hustons books quietly examined by an expet and 10 have little examination mae into hls life and habits out of the baR
 In the meantime trouble olan entirely different nature was brewing for the unfortunate Huston. On that fatal September morning after he had left home, Mrs Josephine Hoiges called on Mrs. Huston and togetherthey had gone into the city on little stopping expedi- tion. While crossing ! street just as the bells were strikingf1 they had been run down by a careless cabman and had narrowly escaped injury. When they protested sharply they had taken the number of his cab, 1476, with a threat to make trouble for him. A blond wo- man with peroxide hair and supernatur- ally tinted cheeks had leaned from the cab and laughed at their anger. but had been pulled back by man whose face they did not see. Mrs. Huston had hur- ried home, butMrs. Hodges had gone to the gas office to pay her gas bill There she had seen the pyrotechnic arrival of Huston in the cab and had noted. in voluntarily the number of the cab 1476.
 To say that the discovery surprised her would be to put it mildly. She nearly fainted at the importance of her discov- cry It was the same cab that had run them down a shcrt time ago and, of course, Huston was the companion of the peroxide blond. In her haste to tell "poor Flo" (to-wit, Mrs Hustop) of her discovery she forgot to pay her gas bill and arrived at the Huston cot tage nearly as soon as Mrs. Huston.
 The consequence was that when Illus ton arrived home that afternoon. burst ing with th.sjoke about the cab he found a deserted cottage very much disordered with evidences of a hasty packing. and brief, tear-stained note informing him t.,>t he was base wretch and that his wife hr5 gone home to her mother.
 Utterly ben 'idered. he hurried to the home of his wife ,people. but was not admitted nor W he permitted to see his wife.
 Tn the mea1 time MT John Hodges, expert bookk eper had been sum moned by th' bank to go over Huston s books on S. nday Having been made the confida t of his wife Josephine, he was not .rprised and hinted as much to the ba ik officials.
 You Know his wife has left him. '' chatter ed Hodges, proud to be the ve- hicle of such a choice morsel "A blond woman, cabs, Wine-all that sort of thi lg.
 So although not an irregularity was four in the books, the officials thought 1t better to take no chances and Mon ds ' MT. Huston found a polite note on | s desk informing him that his serv- ees would be no longer required, anG that instead of the usua! 30 days notice pay for that time would be handed him by the second assistant cashier and no further work would be required of him.
 Before he left the bank a deputy sheriff served papers announcing the beginning of divorce proceedings by his wife.