Mrs. Bob: A Novel — page 175: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. 167 ‘‘Sorry to disappoint you, sir, but every engine is engaged—awful busy just at present—any other time we could accommodate you.”’ That ends it. Bob thanks him, and secures a railroad map of the Old Dominion, with time tables. Retiring to a corner he and Joe Hooker endeavor to study out a plan of campaign, while the Senator enjoys a ¢ete-a-tete with Mrs. Bob, who casts numer- ous glances over to where her liege lord is puzzling his brains over the problem of how to reach Gordon- ville in the shortest possible space of time. ‘“There has been a change in my experience,’’ says John Archer, with a smile—‘‘once before I, with a few others, notably a man named Grant, were confronted with the problem of how to get into Richmond. ‘That puzzle bothered us many months. Now the question is how to get out of the immortal capital on the James. ”’ This appears to strike John’s wife as ludicrous, for she gives vent to a little gush of laughter that causes her husband to look up in surprise, wondering what can arouse her when the case 1s so desperate. ‘Poor Bob,’’ she says, sympathetically, ‘‘he does look so forlorn. Generally he can meet difficulties and overcome them in grand style, but once ina long time I have to help him cut. It began that way, _ you remember, Senator. I’ve been brought up in and around Richmond pretty much, and perhaps I can solve the knotty problem. Kindly hand me that railway guide.”’ She fingers the pages with a dexterity that promises / Gomicbookssco im