The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-08-05

l and blackIy. out into the whizzing night. The preddcament had come upon him so suddenly that he hadsnot until now found the opportunity to ana1yze it in it's entirety. The worst that could come off it, of course, was the poor com fort of a night in chair. He knew that it was train of sleeping coaches. An! He suddenly remembered the lug gage want As last resort he might find lodging among the trunks
 And then, too, there was something irritating in the suspicion that she had laughed as if it were a huge joke. Per .l haps even now she was. doubled up in her narrow couch st1fing the giggIe Ehats.wou1d not be suppressed. When the garde came back with the 1ugubrious Information that noth- 1 ing, positively nothing. was to be had 1t is patnfuRto record that Brock swore in manner which won the deepest re- spect of the trafnman. iY
 "At 4.oac1ock in the morning, m'sieur, an o4dsgent1eman and his wife will get 1 out at Strassburg. their destination. | They are tn this carriage, and you may take their compartmentai nassieur will not object to sleeping in a room just xacateds by two mourners who today; buried beloved son in Paris They have kept all of the flowers in their''-s
 Flour o'clock! Good Lord, what am I to do till thenT' groaned Brock, glar- ing with unmaniy. hatred at the door of the Medcroft compartment.
 Perhaps madame may be willing to take the upper ventured the guard ttnorously, but Brock checked him with peremptory gesture. He pro posed, instead, the luggage van, where upon the garde burst into a psalm of utter dejection- It was against the rules, 1rrevocably. ftsE
 'TThen guess I'll have to sit here all. n6ght,'' said Brock faintly. He was forgetting his English
 'Tf m'sieurs will not occupy his own bed, yes,,n' said the guard, struggling his shoulders and washing his hands of the whole incoInprehensible affair. ''b1' 'sieur will then be up to receive the customs officers at the frontier. Per haps he will give me the keys to ma danes trunks so that she may not be disturbed 2 soska
 Ask her for 'em yourself" growIed Brock, after one dazed moment of dis may.
 The hours crawled slowly by He paced the length of the wriggling cor rfdor hundred times back and forth; he sat on every window seat in the carriage; he nodded and dozed and groaned and laughed at himself in the deepest derision all through the dismal 1 night Daylight came at f. He saw the sun rise for the first time in his life. He neither enjoyed nor appre- ctated the novelty. Never had he wit messed anything so mournfully depress- ing as the first gray tints that crept up to mock him in his vigil Never had H,-Ns red glow that sufused the morning sky.
 'I'l sleep all day if I ever get into { that d-d bed., he said to himself, bit terly w1stful
 The customs officers had eyed him sus- picious1y at the border. They had evi- dently been told of his strange mad ness in refusing to occupy the berth he had paid for. Their examination of his effects was more thorough than usual. It may have entered their heads that he was standing guard over the repose of fair accomplice. They ask ed so many enba rrassing and discon- cer1ng questions that he was deVoutly relieved when they passed on, still sus- picious
 The train was late, and at 5 o'clock he was desperately combating an inn
 
 lodging in a hotel and then, refreshed, set out for London to have it out with the malevolent Medcroft. The dfsem- barking of the venera bIe mourners however, restored him to a degree of his peace of mind After all, he re viewed, it would be cowardIy and, base to desert a trusting wife. He pictured her as asleep and securely confident in his stanchness. No, he would have it out with Medcroft at some later day.
 He was congra tuIating himself on the, acquisition of a bed-aIthough it might possess the odor of a bed of tuberoses-when all of his pleasant calculations were upset by the appear ance, of a German burgher and his family It was then that he learned that these people had booked le com partement from Strassburg to fMu- nich-
 Brock resumed his window seat and despondently awaited the call to break fast He fell sound asleep with his monocle in position, nor did it matter to him that his hat dropped through the window and went scuttling off across the green Rhenish fields. When next he looked at his watch it was o'clock. A small boy was standing at the. end of the passage staring wide eyed at him.. Two. little girls came piling, half dressed, from compart- meRt, evidently in response to the youngsters whispered command to hurry out and see the funny man. Brock scowled darlzly, and the trio 1arted swiftly into the compartment.
 He dragged his stiff legs into the dining car at Stuttgart and showed them under a table. The car was