The Prescott daily news., 1908-07-23
A STEAMER SMOKING
 ROOM STORY.

In the smoking room or an Ocedn liner they were telling stories of dis appearances at sea. This is one of them by an elderly American gentle man.
 T was crossing from Southampton to New York. We had among the pas sengers a jolly devil may care young Englishman named Trevor. who was the life of the ship. He was especially a favorite with the ladies, though he seemed to prefer the society of men, spending a lot of time in the smoking room.
 There was middle aged passenger aboard, with a wife twenty years his junior. We hadn't been out three days before the young wife was daft about Trevor and the husband green with jealousy. Then there was an old maid who would sit moping on deck till Trevor appeared, when she would lan- guish till he joined her and look mex pressibly happy if he did so for even a few minutes. And so l could go on mentioning various women, all of whom were more or less affected. Trevor singled me out for his principal companion, and we used to sit in his stateroom by the hour chatting and smoking. On one occasion 1 rallied him on the preference shown him by the young married woman.
 "One morning after the breakfast hour we missed Trevor in the smok- ing room. At noon a steward came to ciate and told me that my friends room was locked and no amount of knocking could elicit reply. The ships carpenter was called. l went with him, and he forced the door.
 The room was empty.
 'There could have been no means of egress for the occupant except the port holes. It seemed to me that he would have had difficulty in getting through one of them but there Is no knowing what one may yfaccomplish in crawling through small space, especially if given abnormal strength by insanity, though some thought Trevor had crawled out in his sleep.
 We were a dull company for the rest of the voyage. The young wife didn't attempt to conceal her emotion, and her husband looked as if he would have liked to help Trevor make way with himself. Some of the men even hinted that the husband had something to do with Trevor's disappearance, but this supposition did not gain favor with the rest. Indeed, it was absurd on its face.
 We reached New York without the reappearunce of the favorite or q solu- tion of the problem. The purser broke open Trevor's trunk in the hope of learning more of his identity than his mere name, but the information was not forthcoming. So the case was set down as one of those mysterious disap- pearances that are never to be ex- plained
 Now comes one of the strangest happenings of all my life. Talk of CO., incidences, never have heard or read of anything to beat what I'm going to tell you. Three years later went from my home in Connecticut to the Pacific coast partly on business and partly to attend the wedding of niece of mine l reached her home several days before the wedding and when introduced to the groom expectant stood paralyzed with astonishment.
 He was Trevor
 "He turned red and white and was evidently at first bent on denying his identity. Then he laughed and said:
 "Yes; we've met before. There's an explanation-not much to my, credit l confess, but it might have been more to my discredit if I hadn't done what I did, though to tell the truth I chose method that was rather acceptable to young scapegrace than an older man Do you remember the young married woman who''-
 "'Set her husband wild by going wild herself about you? Yes; go on.
 "She was wild true enough-so wild I couldn't control her. She was bent on running three persons, heI husband, herself and me. I made q confidant of the captain and proposed to make a stowaway of myself for tn, rest of the voyage to get out of hel way. He offered to stow me in his cabin instead, and I accepted the offer Mighty good man, the captain, ant first class at keeping secret. l ar ranged the disappearance and, to pre- vent the news reaching home before could cable, removed anything tha would point to my address. But heavens, how did I come to get en gagged to your nieceY