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SOOTHING EFFECTS
177

and put that active, eager, pert little thing behind jail bars to be locked up until she was ten years older.

Now if "Iron Age" could specialize on George, I could control my emotions perfectly. I'd become somewhat more indulgent toward George, I've told you; yet I was not wild over him, at all. However, if "Iron Age" got George, by the same process he'd probably have Doris and maid too. So I was feeling almost friendly with George when I noticed he was standing up. He seemed absolutely casual about where he wanted to go. He wandered down nearer "Iron Age" first, yawned and turned a few pages of a Harper's on the desk there; that seemed to make him sleepier and he strolled forward out of the car.

I arose and drifted after him. Through two Pullmans he walked ahead of me wholly unaware, so far as I could guess, that I was behind him; then, in the vestibule of the third car—with doors closed before and behind us—he half-turned his head.

"Old dear, check him," he said to me. "Here; this door's jammed."

He opened the door before him as he spoke, he sidled through and, as he shut it, he dropped