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"Well, sir, I was about to offer myself as exhibit A on a slab in the nearest morgue," Congdon continued, "when I met a young woman who seemed to understand me, and right there's where I made the greatest mistake of my life. It was last spring when that happened. Talk about plausibility, Comly! The word never had any meaning until that girl came along.
The cautious hint of the taxi driver that domestic difficulties were responsible for the breaking up of the Congdon household found here a painful corroboration. He chivalrously took sides at once with the unhappy Alice; no matter how shrewish the absconding wife might be, only a brute of a husband would fling such a message at her head. Archie hated discord; the very thought of it was abhorrent.
I've been talking straight from the shoulder, as I advise you to do." He capitulated. "After the turkey. Come on, Ben, we're in for a lecture by the Professor-Doctor Lee Congdon."
He threw open a cabinet filled with blue prints illustrating queer mechanical contrivances. They struck him as very silly and he slammed the thing shut in disgust, convinced that Congdon was a crank, or he wouldn't have indulged in such foolishness. In a drawer of the desk was an automatic pistol and a box of cartridges.
And so they parted, and Congdon went home to renew the discussion with his wife. "You must call. It's only the decent thing to do, now that the portrait is nearly done," he said. "I don't mind the calling, Frank," she briskly replied, "and I don't much mind giving a little dinner, but I don't want to get the girl on my mind.
The ways of Isabel were beyond all human understanding; and yet her contradictions only added to her charm. Isabel's agitation over the affairs of the Congdons led him close to the point of mentioning her name to note its effect upon Mrs. Congdon, but to do this might be an act of betrayal that would only confirm Isabel's opinion of him as a stupid, meddlesome person.
At the mention of Putney Congdon a laugh, the sharp concatenation of a lunatic caused the driver to glance round apprehensively. "That's the scream of it, you know!" Archie cried. "I don't know for the life of me whether it was Putney Congdon I shot at the Congdon house or Hoky, the burglar. They're burying Hoky today and my partner in crime wonderful chap insisted on going to the funeral.
The entrance to the other was so narrow as to send a visitor to his knees. But inside it seemed to open out. Moreover, there were fish bones at the entrance. The captain, the surgeon, and Congdon, the coxswain, landed. Captain Parkinson reached the spot first. Stooping, he thrust his head in at the orifice. A sharp exclamation broke from him.
There was no other spot in all the world so exalting as this small town and its over-peering peaks. "Where is Mrs. Congdon?" she succeeded in asking at last. "She has visitors and couldn't come," he answered. "But where's that 'mobile we've heard so much about?" "Coming by fast freight." "Freight! From all I've heard of your doings in Chicago I expected it to come as excess baggage."
The fear of being accosted by an acquaintance made him nervous, and his anxiety seemed to be shared by Congdon, who chose an eating place unfrequented by travelers. By this time Archie was fully committed to the further journey into Michigan and contributed his half to the purchase of a stateroom for the trip.
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