The Port of Missing Men

is heavy in my to

send some telegrams. It was a small shop, and the time early afternoon, when few people were about. A man who had preceded her was looking at watches, and seemed deeply absorbed in this occupation. She heard his i

tempting bazaars, aren't they? If the abominab

had concluded the purchase of a watch, whi

can place it in his hands it must be examined and appraised and all the pleasure of the gift

knack at the business; but my father is so p

being taxed and to the alternative of corrupting the

at home," replied Shirley. She received her change,

o meet me here; he ran

y expl

re innumerable things one would like to come

houghts to it. But lost views can hardly be managed that way. After I get home I sha

ch

poleon's tomb-the awfulness of what he did and was-and being here in Switzerland, where I always feel somehow the p

e after all these years, and they have certainly seen men and nations do many evil and w

, and absurdly raw. When we have a war, it is just politics, with scandals about what the soldiers have

you see Italian laborers at work in America digging ditches or laying railroad ties, or find Norwegian farmers driving their plows

is face brightened pleasantly when he spoke; his eyes were grayer than she had mockingly described them for her brother'

often did-in the Fort Myer drill hall at Washington and watched the alert cavalrymen dashing toward the spectators' gallery in the mimic charge. The work that brave men do she admired above anything else in the world. As a child in Washington she had looked wonderingly upon the statues of heroes and the frequent military pageants of the capital; and she had wept at the solemn pomp of military funerals. Once on a ba

ed him immensely. He had seen her first in Paris a few months before at an exhibition of battle paintings. He had come upon her standing quite alone before High Tide at Gettysburg, the picture of the year; and he had noted

ly been on cordial terms with the Claibornes; and as he had seemed to be master of his own time, it was wholly possible that he would

quite near the shop do

come back wit

sive conflicts that led up to the realization of democracy? Consider the worthless idlers of the Middle

say it; he was the v

am indebted to you, Miss Claiborn

nd Dick Claiborne came up to th

s murdered in his railway carriage between here and V

Are you quite sur

ct and colorless, so that Shirley looked at him in surprise; but she saw that

count was an old man and feeble when we saw him the other

a better fate," r

ked toward the carriage. "Father admired him greatly; and he was very

observed Armitage, still grave. "He w

news of the hour, and Captain Claiborne paused a moment at th

l see-" began th

peror-king in his place; and if he should go hence without heirs, his cousin Francis would rule in the house of his fat

his hat and stick and gloves in his right hand, his

solemn customer, and not cheerful enough to make a good dr

other, if I must make th

d it! I hardly thought yo

sman of imitation cut-glass

e hasn't been bu

mself on a watch for the

tan

you're c

ed francs for a watch to give to the foreman of his ranch-his ranch, mind you, in Montana, U.S.A. He spok

e. Montana isn't a good hiding-place any more. But it was odd the way he

Stroebel! Many hearts are lig

ething doing in Austria, no

t von Stroebel's death and speculations as to its effect on the future of Austria and the peace of Europe. The Claiborn

ck and his sister waited for a carriage to carry them to their train. He had just returned

we sail. Perhaps we shall see you one of these days in America," said Cla

ry fond of Washington," re

ed Dick. "I shall be at Fort Myer for a

ast word with the porter

o Shirley, who had alrea

ebel's assassin?" she asked, noting the

ery mysterious and

ssible-he was a wonderful old man. But

undoub

d in the carriage door-Shirley smiled in her joy of the situation, and would have prolonged it for her brother's benefit even to the point of

our Europe in pursuit of t

lied Armit

tones of her voice, and the changing light of her eyes; and a certain dimple in her left cheek-he had assured himself

l, no doubt," said Shirley. "The assas

h unbroken gravity. "In fact, I rather expect h

afing Claiborne, who gave his hand to Armi

s drummer has nearly cau

e've seen the las

eyes. And on the way to Liverpool she thought often of Armitage's last words.

in at all. She remembered him as he stood framed in the carriage door-his gravity, his fine eas

woven for her, nor how those last words spoken by Armitage at the carriage door