Description

Tales from Bohemia

129 pages

When Jack Morrow returned from the World’s Fair, he found Philadelphia thermometers
registering 95. The next afternoon he boarded a Chestnut Street car, got out at Front Street,
hurried to the ferry station, and caught a just departing boat for Camden, and on arriving at
the other side of the Delaware, made haste to find a seat in the well-filled express train
bound for Atlantic City.
While he was being whirled across the level surface of New Jersey, past the cornfields
and short stretches of green trees and restful cottage towns, he thought of the pleasure in
store for him—the meeting with the young person whom he had gradually come to
consider the loveliest girl in the world. Having neglected to read the list of “arrivals” in the
newspapers, he knew not at what hotel she and her aunt were staying. But he would soon
make the rounds of the large beach hotels, at one of which she was likely to be found.
She did not expect to see him. Therefore her first expression on beholding him would
betray her feelings toward him, whatever they were. Should the indication be favourable,
he would propose to her at the first opportunity, on beach, boardwalk, hotel piazza,
pavilion, yacht or in the surf. Such were the meditations of Jack Morrow while the train
roared across New Jersey to the sea.