One Wonderful Night

One Wonderful Night, by Louis
Tracy

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Title: One Wonderful Night A Romance of New York
Author: Louis Tracy
Release Date: November 3, 2006 [EBook #19707]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE
WONDERFUL NIGHT ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: FRANCIS X. BUSHMAN AS JOHN D. CURTIS.
BEVERLY BAYNE AS LADY HERMIONE.]

ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT
A ROMANCE OF NEW YORK
BY
LOUIS TRACY

AUTHOR OF
MIRABEL'S ISLAND, THE WINGS OF THE MORNING, ETC.

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
EDWARD J. CLODE

A FOREWORD
Moving picture enthusiasts who reveled in the romantic mysteries that
tangled the plot of ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT will find even more
pleasure in reading this fascinating story.
"THE LADIES' WORLD" contest--the greatest in the history of motion
pictures--has just come to a close. Under the auspices of the "Ladies'
World" with its million circulation monthly, moving picture lovers all
over the United States have been voting for the actor to impersonate the
heroic part of John Delancy Curtis in the photo-play of ONE

WONDERFUL NIGHT--probably the most interesting and absorbing
presentation ever made on the screen.
Five million, four hundred and forty-thousand, seven-hundred and sixty
votes were cast. Francis Bushman won the prize. With a vote of
1,806,630 he was chosen the typical American hero. In the Essanay
Company's elaborate production of ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT, Mr.
Bushman is supported by a strong cast, including beautiful Beverly
Bayne as Lady Hermione.
Those who have witnessed the photo-play production will find the book
even more intensely interesting. The hero, John Delancy Curtis, drops
in from Pekin, China, for a brief rest from strenuous engineering work,
and on his first night in New York finds a marriage license in the
pocket of a murdered man's coat, rushes off in a taxi to the address of
the woman named therein, marries her, punches a frantic rival on the
nose, flouts her father (an English baronet), takes the fair one to a hotel,
holds a banquet at which the Chief of Police of New York is an
honored guest, and sits down to gaze contentedly into the future of bliss
that a half a million a year will bring.
We bespeak for the reader pleasure, entertainment and diversion in this
absorbing and unusual story.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.
DUSK II. EIGHT O'CLOCK III. EIGHT-THIRTY IV. AN
INTERLUDE V. NINE O'CLOCK VI. NINE-THIRTY VII. TEN
O'CLOCK VIII. TEN-THIRTY IX. ELEVEN O'CLOCK X.
MIDNIGHT XI. ONE O'CLOCK XII. TWO-THIRTY A.M. XIII.
WHEREIN LADY HERMIONE "ACTS FOR THE BEST" XIV.
THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING XV. WHEREIN THE PACE

SLACKENS--BUT ONLY FOR A FEW HOURS XVI. A PARLEY
XVII. WHEREIN JOHN AND HERMIONE BECOME ORDINARY
MEMBERS OF SOCIETY

ILLUSTRATIONS
FRANCIS X. BUSHMAN AS JOHN D. CURTIS. BEVERLY
BAYNE AS LADY HERMIONE . . . . . . Frontispiece
Scenes from the photo-drama
Scenes from the photo-drama
Scenes from the photo-drama

ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT
CHAPTER I
DUSK
"There, sonny--behold the city of your dreams! Good old New York, as
per schedule. . . . Gee! Ain't she great?"
The slim, self-possessed youth of twenty hardly seemed to expect an
answer; but the man addressed in this pert manner, though the senior of
the pair by six years, felt that the emotion throbbing in his heart must
be allowed to bubble forth lest he became hysterical.
"Old New York, do you call it?" he asked quietly. The tense restraint in
his voice would perhaps have betrayed his mood to a more delicately
tuned ear than his companion's, but young Howard Devar, heir of the
Devar millions--son of "Vancouver" Devar, the Devar who fed
multitudes on canned salmon, and was suspected of having cornered
wheat at least once, thus woefully misapplying the parable of the loaves

and fishes--had the wit to appreciate the significance of the question,
deaf as he was to its note of longing, of adulation, of vibrant sentiment.
"Coelum non animum mutat, which, in good American, means that it is
the same old city on the level, and only changes its sky-line," he
chortled. "Bet you a five-spot to a nickel I'll walk blindfolded along
Twenty-third Street from the Hoboken Ferry any time of the day, and
take the correct turn into Broadway, bar being run over by a taxi or
street-car at the crossings."
"I'll take the same odds and do that myself. How could any normal
human being miss the rattle of