Page:C Q, or, In the Wireless House (Train, 1912).djvu/170

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X


Mrs. Trevelyan makes an error of judgment and the Captain scores.

A GENTLE southen breeze, warmed by the bright rays of the September sun, fanned Mrs. Trevelyan’s straying yellow curls as she sat outside the door of her state-room and idly turned the pages of the European edition—without the advertisements—of an American monthly. Somehow the loss of bulk in her usual slice of current literature gave her a sense of being defrauded. It was not that she enjoyed the contents less, but she missed all those ingenious devices to capture her jaded attention, the humor of the phraseology of the Yankee “ad,” and the ofttimes startling representations of ladies and gentlemen in divers stages of undress and dishabille that peeped at her from between the leaves. Sometimes she recognized her own photograph, thinly disguised, advertising a cigar, a cold cream or a

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