THERE'S DANGER IN NUMBERS


The Pennsylvania Limited was approaching Jersey City and the afternoon
was approaching three o'clock when Mr. John Blake turned to Mrs. John
Blake, née Marjorie Underwood, a bride of about three hours, and
precipitated the first discussion of their hitherto happy married life.

"Your Uncle Richard Underwood," said he--the earlier discussions in the
wedded state are usually founded upon relations--"is as stupid as he is
kind. It was very good of him to arrange that I should meet old
Nicholson. Any young fellow in the country would give his eyes for the
chance. But to make an appointment for a fellow at four o'clock in the
afternoon of his wedding day is a thing of which no one, except your
Uncle Richard, would be capable. He might have known that I couldn't go."

"But you must go," urged the bride, "it's the chance of a lifetime.
Besides which," she added with a pretty little air of practicality, "we
can't afford to throw away an opportunity like this. We may never get
another one, and if you don't go how are you to explain it to Uncle
Richard when we dine there to-morrow night?--you know we promised to,
when he was last at West Hills."

"But what," suggested her husband--"what if, in grasping at the shadow,
I lose the reality? I'd rather lose twenty opportunities than my only
wife, and what's to become of you while I go down to Broad Street? Do
you propose to sit in the station?"