“And now for our disguises,—or rather the time has come to discard our disguises!” cried Madame almost joyfully. “I hate to appear as such a frump!”
Misel’s disguise was composed principally of cane and crutch, but at his wife’s instigation he shaved his mustache. With the help of a checked suit and red necktie and a brown derby hat a trifle too small for him, the pathetic and interesting teacher of the French language was transformed into the type of man one sees hanging around a race track. With a clever brush Madame put a quirk in his eyebrows that completed the portrait. Then a bit of court plaster was stuck on one of the perfect teeth which gave the handsome Misel a sinister look and suggested to the beholder former battles and fisticuffs in which he had been struck in the mouth.
“Even your dying sister will not recognize you!” exclaimed his wife.
Madame’s transformation was even more startling than her husband’s. First she shook out her smoothly brushed hair and with the help of curling tongs soon had a wave that the finest hair dresser in New York could not have exceeded. She piled her abundant hair up in curls and twists and coils, pulling out puffs over her ears. Then with pencil and rouge pot and powder puff she went to work on her countenance. A raging beauty was the outcome, but rather fast and loud looking. A lavender suit lined and slashed with corn-colored silk was then donned, with many rings and bracelets. The flat-heeled shoes were packed away in the suit-case with the sober costume, and high-heeled French boots were fitted on in their stead. A plentiful sprinkling of musk was added so that the nostrils were assailed as soon as the eyes.
“Tough sports!” would have been the verdict of anyone meeting the Misels. They had decided on the night train to New York. The cottage was carefully locked, the key enclosed in the letter to the landlord, which they posted on their way to the station. Everything was going smoothly. The station was empty when the pair stepped upon the platform and in a moment the New York train came steaming around the curve.
“Thank God, we are getting away unnoticed!” gasped Misel.
“Thank God if you choose, but it would be more to the point if you thanked me. I can’t see that anyone has helped you but me.”
“Oh, well! Have it your own way!” said the spurious bookmaker as they boarded the train.
“Someone got left,” he laughed as they took their seats in the chair car. “I saw a man and woman running down the road just as we got aboard. I am glad they got left. Whoever it is might have recognized us.”
“Nonsense! Didn’t I tell you your own dying sister would not know you?” and Madame Misel smoothed her lavender draperies and jangled her many bracelets and rings, peeping in the mirror meantime to adjust her large beplumed hat. There was a commotion in the end of the Pullman and she heard a familiar voice. In the mirror she espied a familiar face, and under the heavily laid on rouge, the woman paled and the hand that adjusted her hat shook. Misel buried his face in the evening paper some traveler had left in his seat, while the innocent cause of their perturbation found a seat with the help of the porter.