JO ELLEN ~ ] By ALEXANDER BLACK. Wight. i»s«. v_!____/, (Continued From Yesterday.) The train that carried them home ward, starting across the flatlands, then boring into the earth with a eteely clatter, was not altogether favorable to conversation. It was stuffed with swaying people, who screamed to be heard above the rever berating howl of the car trucks in the caverns. The composite smell, dominated by the pungence of per spiration and damp clothes, the free contact of bodies, the readjustments at each station, the bits of drama when a child fell or a woman dropped some of her detachable belongings, all hurt the prospects of a confidence. But they created excitement, too. Marty was bound to talk. He wanted to tell about his position in the cold storage company. There were many surprisingly Interesting things about the business. He recit ed some of these with great earnest ness. Jo Ellen’s attention wandered from the details. There was force fulness in Marty's way of talking, but she wished it had been something not quite like cold storage. Of course, he wasn’t personally occupied in put ting hens on ice. He was in the office, and there was the effect of his having his own desk. Yet she found the subject hard to follow in a crowded subway car. Somewhere else at some other time it might seem different. "Are there any girls there?” she asked, --s “Three. One qf them's no good. Miss Grobe. They're always talking about firing her. She’s lazy and likes to start trouble. A snooper. And she's always making dates on the 'phone. Miss Meisner’s better. A corking good stenographer. Miss Callahan's the hest. She’s a peach.” “What do such girls get?” Marty would have preferred to ex hibit a closer familiarity with the em ploying side, but he was compelled to be indefinite. "I think," he said, “Miss Callahan gets about twenty. She's been there two year* They'll have to give her more if they want to keep her. I’m not sure, but 1 think she's engaged.” "Has she told you?” "O no! She isn't the kind that tells much. Jolly, and all that. Lots of pep, but cagey about her own affairs. You see, I noticed that she has a sort of ring. Not exactly a solitaire. Suspicious though. And there's a way she looks when they talk about the boys. Maybe she'd keep her job after she’s married. They're doing that a good deal.” “Are they?” "Even saying nothing about being married. A friend of mine says his wife is still Miss Stokes at her office (when he calls her up he says, ‘Miss Stokes, please,’) and she has a young boss who’s crazy about her. I should think that would make him nervous. Wouldn't you? But he only laughs about it. He thinks it will b* a great joke when they spring it that she’s been married a year." Jo Ellen laughed with a thought of the young boss. But it didn’t seem like so very good a joke. “I wouldn't like it,’’ pursued Marty. “Of course, it’s nice enough In some ways." “You mean the money." “Yes, the money. Till they get started. I guess she’s pretty inde pendent. She wouldn't marry him unless he said she could keep the job. They meet every night at the Times drug store. Sometimes the boss leaves her with one of the dictated but-noC-read letters and she’s late. Then he gets sore. After that they drop in at the delicatessen for supper stuff. Except on Friday night. They go out to dinner on Friday night. They’re both paid on Friday." “Are they happy?" asked Jo Ellen. “Sure. He says they're still honey moon happy. But T don't like it. Books sneaking. Don't you fhlnk so?" “If she likes it. . . "Waiting for her. Her with a boss. And the boss sweet on her. I don’t like it." “It’s her affair.” "And his, too.” “But more hers," Insisted Jo Ellen. “Maybe. That’s all right. But she’s his wife, isn't she?" “And he made a bargain." “A bargain. Yes. He made a l>hr gain. I suppose you could say that. He ought to have put a time limit on it.” “Bike a year." “l'es. Bike a year. Suppose they didn't? They'll come to a row. He'll be saying, 'I want a real honest-to God wife at home.’ At home.” "But he'll lose the money," sug gested Jo Ellen wdth a shading of malace. Marty left so many openings for malicious things. “Money! That isn't everything. Be sides, he'll be getting a raise." “And she’ll be home doing the dishes and can’t marry the boss." Marty looked appalled. “Say! That sounds—’’ he began. A huge man had lunged against Jo El len’s knees in the process of releasing a scrambling group at one of the station, and she didn't hear how it sounded. When the train had shrieked its way under the soil of Manhattan, Marty was telling of a story he had read about the war; there was one thing in it. . . . Two people who loved each other magnificently had to de cide which one of them ought to die. They were on a raft or something with three cursing sailors, who had decided that they would all go down if some one wasn’t chucked over. Naturally, the lover wanted to be the one if it had to be the girl or him self. But there was the. question of what would become of her,-especially as a big, hairy beast had looked at her a good deal. She wanted them both to slip over together. But it was very important that he should get somewhere, or that a secret mes sage he had in his belt should be carried through. He took off his belt and got it on her, pretending Jhat he could hold her better. Then he sug gested that the whole party draw lots to see who should be sacrificed. That was a thrilling point. It was a hard thing to do. They were all half un der the water. It was getting dark. They broke up some strands of rope The hairy henst got the bad one and jumped at the lover without waiting to curse. They tumbled over to gether and the beast finally went down. In the rough weather and darkness the lover couldn't find the raft. He swam and floated, caught a spar, struggled all night, in the early morning kicked against a reef and at last got to a shore.” “How about the girl?" Asked Jo Ellen. She always thought Marty . was too slow in getting to the main point. “You're always in a hurry,” he said. "She's coming. She was picked up—they were all picked up—by a German submarine, and it looked bad for her. The lieutenant saw that she was a beauty all right. I think they were going to chuck the two sailors, when along comes a chaser, and they were saved. The girl tells the captain of the chaser she just has to see General So-and-So. 'Can’t be done,’ he say*. But she got there She was that kind of a girl." “But the lover “O you’d know he’d to get the gen era! and start his story. And the general picks up the belt from under his papers! Can’t you Imagine when the general pulls the canvas screen one side and there's the girl?" “Was it true?” asked Jo Ellen. “Maybe. It was a story. Some thriller.” “Made up. The real war's a great story.” “Ah! Yes! They say . . ." For a time they talked nbnut the real war. Marty pointed out a head ing in a newspaper which a bedrag gled man. squeezed into a corner, was trying to read. The crowd had thinned before they came to Dyck man street, a strident world seemed to have abandoned when they left the train that had bored its way northward through sand and rock and now cluttered through the sky. Jo Ellen felt a lassitude in the home scenes. Marty tingled under the spell of a warm, romantic unfold ment that appeared to set him hap pily at its center. As they drew near the Hill he realized the wonder of the venerable trees and a homely friendliness pervading the green re cesses. In the last of the twilight the air was soft, sympathetic, with a kind of expectant sweetness. By a touch of the hand he contrived to urge Jo Ellen along the bath that brought them to that ridge overlooking the eastern stretches, a ridge from which, through naked branches, one saw far in winter, but in''surnmer could trace no horizons. Two or three years be fore, when they were unthinkably young, they had together discovered a rock sheif, upholstered with weeds, overhanging the region of the prime val spring and the hollow of the Clove. It was a step down from the shoulder of the ridge, an intimate space, a whimsical pause in the hap hazard gesture of the landscape, ap pointed, as you would say, for any chance two that should come to it in the process of time. They had al ways called it "the high place." "Let's sit down for a minute," said MArty. To any eye that did not know, it might have been thp brink of a canon. Night gave a curious vastness to the tangled mystery of all that lay be low. There was an emanation from the inky shadows, something that was not the faint warm wind nor the whispered insect orchestration. It rose like a stupendous tide, impalpa ble and delicious, that lifted, lifted . . . "Isn't It peaceful"’ exclaimed Mart*' in a subdued voice. Jo Kllen nodded, her hands clasped lover her knee*. She could make out Marty* face when she glanced obliquely. The moon had arisen, hut was not to be seen. They were with in one of Its shadows. In a little while, Marty stood-out dearly enough to he compared in detail with Hian Lamar. She had made the compart son more than once during th- day, but the setting had not been right. (To Be Continued Tomorrow.) r New York --Day by Day v__-—-—* By 0. 0. MTNTYRK. New York, July 4.—Thoughts while strolling around New York: Three supper clubs In a row. Salaaming parasites baring their teeth for tips. Midnight ladies revealing odd dfcwy freshness. But how will they look in the morning? A dark-skinned prince. Wearing an Inverness. Weasel sleek young men. Carrion-eyed old men. And the brazen gold-diggers showing the vulcanized artlessness of their ilk. The haunting refrain of “What'll I Po." And in the inky shadows the old woman selling gum and last edi tions. A boxer with a purple shadow un der his left eye. Broadway night shops dazzle with light. Hosiery. Millinery. And cosmetics. Night workers taking the 12 o’clock lunch hour to visit the movies. Bookmak ers along the curbs receiving the whispered bets. Newsies asleep in doorways. Tor tured by the heat and flies. A long haired reformer with an audience of four. Creaky market carts with lop sided wheels. 4 woman laughs arch ly at an old man—and flees up a pair of steps. No fool like an old fool. Ponderous thinkers grouping at th^ Algonquin. A man with a chair at a pawn shop’s hack door. Hurrying lunehers in the alphabetical quick lunches. Restless trumpeting of Hippodrome elephants. The hard faced loungers about the all night drug stores. Lonely private policeman. Always seeking someone to engage in con versation. Slinking figures In the shady hotels. Zip! goes a man-hole covering. Hope that fellow is not following me. If he is he's silly. I once won a 100-yard dash. Cabaret girls going home. There’s Hassard Short. Early morning whistlers. And the staccato rap of policemen's clubs Cats sneaking home. And they seem Just a little weary with life. Nod ding firemen in their shirt sleeves. Lights blink out. Milk cans rattle. Another day. One of tho most magnificently staged bits In a musical revue of the last year in my opinion was ths "Orange Grove In California" scene in the Music Box Revue. The effect was heightened ss the cur tain rises by flooding the theater with an orange scent and at the climax when the orange trees and crates of orunges take on their amazing yellow glow there Is a collec tive gasp that surpassed anything I have ever heard In the theater. Georgs Belcher the artist, tells of the most considerate undertaker', lie opens the carriage door for the chief mourner and says: "A lovely day for a funeral, sir. Just enough breeze to stir the plumes." Three robberies havs occurred be low the famous dead line at Fulton street during the year. The order that crooks should not pass the dead line was given by Inspector Byrnes in the 80’s and was rigidly observed for many years. It was a sort of un written law there should be no In vasion of that vast treasure trove of gold in Wall street and diamonds In Maiden Lane and woe betide the criminal who trespassed ft. When Byrnes died in 1910 ths law had never been broken. Ouch! Benjamin De Casseres, nov elist, favors the league that spon sors married women retaining their maiden names Snya he: "As man Is the ruler of this planet, and always will he so long as he la woman's phy sical and financial auperlor—for mus cle and mammon are the princes of this world—the Inferior should look on the names of men as a privilege, not a gift. No man should Hllow his wife to take bis name until she can prove she Is a fit mother for his chil dren and that she is a mental and physical complement." Somehow we imagine Ben’s breakfast disagreed with him or something (Copyright. 1124 How to Start the Day Wrong By Briggs .---.---,--- ■■ ' ’ ■« ■ I —-• -■‘iV'T" AMD Propfr Spirit. ■