The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-28

him in convivial moods, letting MINI
self side.
At present he was painfully sober
and painfully matter of fact. Why he
should have been journeying on TINS
slow train into the wilds was a con-
lecture that had nothing to do with
the fact of his presence on the train.
He was there as of right. And one
felt that he would bitterly defend his
occupancy of his seat, at a remark.
The whole personality was repellant,
self-satisfied as one who says this is
me-what have you to say about it?"
His pose at once admitted its discOm-
fort and denied sympathy. 81 will
see this thing through seemed to say
the heavy jaw and the experienced
looking grey mustache, cor l will die
in the attempt.
In the meantime. there was the
wait on the cars, stopping here and
there, suffocating in their heat, filled
with the human cattle of which our
friend with the travelling face denied
in every inch of his body that he was
one.
But it was the face that stared at
one. Hard and scanned and cold, with
the eyes as of glass looking straight
ahead. How many miles of travel had
entered into that SphinX-like face,
how many wrinkles might have been
avoided by a less submissive view?
The man with the face looked
straight ahead, planted in his seat as
one who knows and accepts the futility
of worry, suffering silently towards an
empty gain. Away out in the woods
the train halted at a siding to wait
for freight. The boy and girl, even,
became bored and were palliated only
by the lunch which their mother pro-
duced, only to be the more bored at
the end. Other passengers got up,
walked about. "cussed" the road
vented themselves in natural ways of
human impotence.
Through all this sat the man with
the travelling face, silent, unshiftng
unbending, a thing of old Sparta, cold
as ice.
by way of experiment. / paused be-
fore the traveller and smiled my sweet
est and asked in the most politest
tones:
Excuse me. but can you tell me the
time %
1 wish that I might have the power
to translate the face that granted the
request that / might indicate the
surprise, the CONSERVATION with which
my man of the face was pulled back
| suddenly from the alternating doze of
his self-eXclusion to the cognizance of
fellow creature. For a moment his
eyes blinked through their glasses, his
mellow nose became a trifie more
rudy, and the glare of the man was
the less apparent.
With a vast deliberation he pulled
out massive watch of gold, Tipped
| open the case, examined it with q
minute care and announced, Twelve
! fifty-six''
Whereupon, and instantly, did the
| turtle retire to his shell, was the i'm
| pertinence of the inquiSitor baniShed
| to the realm of the thousand petty in
| conveniences of travel that he had
known. l gave up my man with the
| face as a hopeless job and retired TO
| look for bears out of the window and
| think him over.
Doubtless he had travelled far. Un-
! doubtedly he was experienced. Unde-
niably was he suspicious. The very
air with which he reluctantly disclosed
| his repeater indicated his caution as
| to theft He was safe man. But
what did he know? AS much as the
| boy shooting bears across the aisle?
| BY no means. The one perhaps had
| travelled ten thousand, the other a
| hundred miles. The one, with cold
| eyes of endurance fixed on the front of
the car, had travelled not at all; the
other, with a mind roaming, digesting
all that through which he passed,
knew the worth of the revolving
wheels. Had the man ever been a
| boy? If so, why and when had he
| forgot? Surely he had not sprung
| from the brain of some modern deity,
| with q dollar mark on his bosom! Had
| he ever played three-cornered cat? Or
| Indians in the woods. or run away
from home and come back in time for
late supper? Had he ever killed bears
| in the thicket below the trestle. or
| snagged a club as big as baby from
| the mud-hole sliding past the win
| dow?
| No, the man with the travelling face
| had missed the import of the
| game, which is to see as you go and
| not to go to see. The last is always
an extravagant, if not fatal policy.
In the rear of the car sat a young
man and young woman, and there
arose a dispute as to whether they
were not man and wife.
TOO attentive" said one.
''In the second class car said an
other mo man would take his bride
anywhere except in a first class car
but the man is not smoking" said
a third.
eff you all will bet, I will go and
see," said the fourth of the game OF
cards.
The girl and man had been animated
beyond the newly married. They had
smiled one upon the other and pointed
out objects of interest from the win
dow and bought bananas from the
butcher and generally enjoyed them
selves. 1t was a cinch that they were
not married, and we laughed as the
long. tall newspaper man swung his
hat from his head in a semi-circula1
lbow and put his query.
T You should have seen the blush or
that girlish face, the nonchalant swell
ing of that manly chest! The CIR
Uttered and the man smiled from
ear to ear.
Married." he doomed at length
and the car jumped at the voice thai
had called the hogs from the ranges
of the hills. "Well / should say so
this morning, bet your life were mar
RED
. And as the bride shook with merrf
ment till the red roses on her ha
danced their glee and the groom osten
tatiously resumed operations on {
l banana. and the newspaper man flush
ed to the ears in search of an appro
pirate sentiment, we knew it for thu
, truth And the care giggled and turn
4 ed in it's seat to look, and somebod!
proposed three cheers and they CAM