The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1912-09-23

others wasning, so IN Sleeping Car
pathia We attain a meager respecta-
bility by everybody's chaperoning
everybody else.
So topsy-tarvied, indeed, are our
notions, once we are aboard a train,
that the staterooms alone are regard
ed with suspicion; we question the
motives of those who must have a
room to themselves,-a room with a
real door! that locks!
And, now, on this sleeping car. pref
enacting that would have thrown our
great-grandmothers into fts-scenes
which, If we found them in France, or
Japan, We should view with alarm as
almost uncomfortable evidence OF the
moral obliQuity Of those nations.
But this was our own countryside
part of it which admits that II is the
best part-the moralest part, the
staunch middle west. This was I'LL
nois. Yet dozens OF cars were behold
ng similar immodesties In chastest
Illinois, and all over the map, thou
sands Of people, in hundreds OF cars,
were permitting total strangers to
view preparations which have always,
hitherto, been reserved for the most
intimate and IegaIized relations.
The porter was deity Transforming
the day-coach into a narrow lane en-.
tirely surrounded by draperies. Behind
most of the portieres, fiuttering in the
lightest breeze, and perilously follow.
ing the hasty passer-by, homely OF.
fees were being enacted. The popu-
lation OF this little town was going to
bed. The porter was putting them to
sleep as if they were children in a
nursery, and he a black nanny.
The frail walls of little sanctums
were bullying with the bodies of peo-
pie disrobing in the aisle, with moth
ing between them and the beholder's
eye but a clinging curtain that ex.
planned what it did not reveal From
apertures here and there disembodied
feet were protruding and mysterious
hands were removing shoes and other
things.
Women in risky attire were scoot.
ing to one end of the car, and men in
shirt sleeves, or less, were fastening
to the other.
When Mallory returned to the
"Snowdrop," his ear was greeted by
the thud of dropping shoes. He found
Marjorie being rapidly immured, like
Poe's prisoner, in a Jail of closing
walls.
She was unspeakably Ill at ease,
and by the irony of custom, the one
person on whom she depended for pro-
lection was the one person whose
contiguity was most alarming-and
all for lack of a brief trialogue, with
a clergyman, as the tertium quid.
When Mallory's careworn face ap-
peared round the edge OF the partition
now erected between her and the
abode of DR.. and Mrs. Temple, Mar
jorie shivered anew, and asked with
all anxiety:
Did you find minister"
Perhaps the Recording Angel over.
looked Mallory's answer: Not a
damn minister"
When he dropped at Marjorie's side
she edged away from him, pleading:
"Oh, what shall We do?"
He answered dismally and inef-
fectively: Well have to go on pre-
tending to be-just friends"
But everybody thinks we're mar.
ried."
That's SOL" he admitted, with the
imbecility of fatigued hope. They sat
a while listening to the porter slip
ping sheets into place and humping
pillows into cases, a few doors down
the street He would be ready for
them at any moment. Something must
be done, but what? what?
Continued Tomorrow