The Vestibule Limited Mystery — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

THE VESTIBULE LIMITED MYSTERY. 17 section—who knows? Forty is an age of reason to be sure, but they tell me reason is no match for Cupid, and I am fain to believe it, judging from the many odd things I have witnessed in times past. Suddenly, I remember that as yet I have made no effort to discover the other party who is supposed to be watching these people. I glance around the car to see if I can pick him out immediately, but, passing from one traveler to another, I fail to do so. I recognize a well-known manager and dramatic writer, whose plays have been a-great success. In his company is an actor, also well known as a delineator of peculiar people. They occupy section one. Then I see a commercial traveler—how easy it is to distinugish him from the common herd. He looks as though he owns the earth. 1 afterward learn that he isa New York business man, bound to Chicago, perhaps to attend some important meet- ing. Opposite him is a woman attired asa nun. She sits there almost motionless, and no doubt en- grossed with serious thoughts. Farther on are the trio I am watching, the young man having a seat vis-a-vis with myself, when in it. As I turn and pass down the aisle to get a drink of water, while the train shoots through Newark, I take in the balance of my fellow-passengers. Just back of me, in six, are two ladies and a gentleman, whom I set down as belonging to the upper ten of Chicago. Scraps of their talk having already reached my ears gives me this pies even before I see them. Then in section five, across from them are a num- ber of yalises, the owners of which are either in the comicbooks