"Tell 'Em It Was Spring. Tell 'Em It Was Blossom Time" - Third Finger, Left Hand

What's better than Myrna Loy and Melvyn Douglas? Nothing. 

This is one of my favourite movies; I'm thinking like, top five movies. If I could only pick a handful that I could watch for the rest of my life, this one's definitely on it. 

So let's dive in and celebrate love and spring and subterfuge! 

June Brides are a constant theme in old movies but I'd never heard the term until I started watching them. Just an aside from me here, as we meet Margot, played by Myrna Loy.

Margot is the editor of Smart magazine, a women's publication. 

I love old technology. This '40s telecom was cutting edge once upon a time!

Margot: Look, Steve, you're a good printer, but if you must express what spring does to you in type, put those forget-me-not borders on some other magazine. Try the editor of the mining engineers monthly journal. Martin, wire Chicago to hold up publication one day.

The point is, she's good at her job, tough and fair, and willing to hold up publication and mess with the summer collections just to get perfection. 

Enter her boyfriend/lawyer, Philip, who's madly in love with her. Before they can get too deep into conversation, the staff comes in with a present for Margot. 

Staff: Mrs. Merrick, on behalf of the staff, uh, we wanted to... This is your first wedding anniversary, and we... Well, the guild got you a letter opening set, and it's gold, it's got your initials engraved on it,

and here it is, and I hope you like it. 

Margot: Now, isn't that sweet of them.

Philip: Margot, as long as the subject's come up of itself, don't you think you ought to-

Margot: Philip, again? 

Philip: Well, you've got to take steps.

Margot: Isn't that nice?

Philip: Yes, it is. You can't go on being tied to a husband who doesn't even care enough to want to see you.

Margot: Oh, but he does. I'm sure he does.

Philip: Well, he certainly has a fine way of showing it. Never seeing you all year, wandering around foreign countries.

Margot: Philip, dear, I'm trying to work. 

Philip: Yes, I know, but this is important. Margot, he couldn't care anything about you and stay away.

Margot: I got a letter from him this morning that will convince even you how Tony feels about me.

Philip: That isn't the point. I can't understand it. How could you marry a man that none of us have ever seen? That you didn't know anything about? That nobody ever heard of? Just like that, boom, and you're Mrs. Tony Merrick.

Margot: I don't understand it myself sometimes. But there I was alone in Rio in April. 

Philip: Very romantic.

Margot: Madly romantic. It was raining. Spring rain turning the pavements blue. I adore rain.

Philip: I detest it. It gives me head colds. And furthermore, if it was so romantic, why did you leave him?

Margot: It stopped raining. 

Philip: Margot, darling. I can't let you go on like this. It's your life I'm thinking-

Margot: Philip, if you promise to stop being jealous, and go back to your law office and let a weary woman work, you can take me out to dinner.

After Philip leaves, she rings up her friend, August Winkel, who's the magazine's photographer. She tells him to be a little more careful with his letters next time. "He's supposed to be in South  America. And in the corner of the envelope, there's a little note which reads: 'Schultz' Butcher Shop, West 9th Street, bring home pot roast for Emily."

In comes Beth, her secretary, to tell her that she couldn't get an interview with a guy because he was flirting with her too much. Margot tells her that all that disappears the moment an 'Mrs.' appears in front of your name. "Their attitude's different. You have to join the lodge. Then you'll be able to wear the emblem on the third finger of the left hand." 

Cut to another phone call. It's Hughie, another paramour. 

He's celebrating the fact that his divorce has gone through and wants Margot to be his bride. He just needs to find this Tony Merrick first and he plans to get a private detective on the case to find him. 

Enter Mr. and Mrs. Russell, her boss and his wife. They're in because the novel Smart has been serializing is so good, Mrs. Russell can't wait until the next issue to find out what happens, she needs the galley proofs now. 

And while they're there, Mr. Russell gawks at Beth, to the point where his wife comes over and drags him away for their reservations. Margot tells her that it's the male ego: "They can't believe an unmarried woman has any reason for being in an office except to meet men and raise gleams in their eyes."

While visiting one of her staffers, Mr. Winkel, a PI calls to get a description of Tony Merrick, so she offers up the description of the first man she sees: "He's, uh, rather slender. Medium height. Uh, narrow, sensitive face.  Uh, hobby photography. Rather foreign looking. Uh, he always wears little black nose  glasses. Uh, yes, and when he's worried, he, um, twiddles his moustache. Yes, thank you. Let me know if you locate him."

When Mr. Winkel worries about the PI, Margot tells him that "All I've asked you to do is write few letters."

That's true, he says, but now there's more attached to it. "But now comes lawyers and detective agencies and maybe all kinds of trouble." 

Margot reminds him that no unmarried woman has ever lasted as editor of Smart magazine, so she's doing what needs to be done to keep her job. Besides, it's not a crime to make up a husband, she says. 

Later, Margot's down at the shipyard to meet the cruise ship that just came into port. Her friend is on it, so she's going aboard to welcome her home. 

Meanwhile, Jeff Thompson, a painter from Ohio, is aboard the ship ready to show some of his work to a buyer to represent him. He has to get out for a little bit to sign his card, so he wants assurances that his paintings will be safe. They will be, he's promised. 

But then he runs into Margot in the hall. 

And she winds up in his stateroom by accident. She's admiring her friend's paintings when a man comes in. 

Meet Mr. Flandrin (played by Donald Meek), the art buyer. 

Instead of, y'know, letting him get on with his job (not that Margot knows he's an art buyer), she gets in his way. When he wants to have the curtains opened to flood the room with natural light, Margot argues that they're fine with the artificial light. When Mr. Flandrin says that he "prefers no conversation

when he's judges work," she asks if it bothers him if she breathes. 

Then, when he has the audacity to compliment the paintings, Margot jumps in with a: "If you think for one second that a painter who's a very personal friend of mine, a college schoolmate, in fact, is going to come back with this exquisite work and have a dealer like you gobble it up, you're mistaken."

He tells her that he will handle the work for a 20% commission, but Margot tells him, in no uncertain terms, that she's going to handle the sales with her own set of contacts and she's not going to take a commission. And with that, she throws him out of the room. 

Perfect timing for Jeff: he's heading back to his room just as Mr. Flandrin's leaving. He tries to stop and talk with the buyer, but he won't hear of it: Flandrin tells him that he's already got a buyer, apparently. "It's being handled already by the lady friend in your cabin. Shoo! Go away! Get out! To me! All right, let her handle it then. Good day."

Thoroughly confused, and who can blame him, Jeff heads back to his room, where he finds the stranger Margot laughing it up with a steward. She's been informed that her friend wasn't on the ship, and she finds the whole situation funny, you see? 

Margot: I just found out that these were your paintings. 

Jeff: Oh, you did, huh?

Margot: Yes. I-I shooed some art dealer out of here, and then the steward told me that miss Max- uh, that she'd left the boat, and then I knew they weren't hers. 

Jeff: You deduced that all by yourself, huh?

Margot: Yes.

Jeff: Did you also deduce the fact that it's taken me two years to get him to look at my work?

Margot: I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't laugh, but it was amusing. You should have seen his face.

Jeff: I saw it. 

Margot: Oh. Well, then you know what happened. I'm frightfully sorry.

Jeff: Don't worry about it. 

Margot: Good-bye now. 

It's kind of audacious that Margot's just going to walk away from this like she didn't almost ruin Jeff's professional career, but luckily the movie doesn't end here. In fact, Jeff's going to usher us into the next scene. He tells her, in no uncertain terms, that she's going to hop a bus with him (I doubt she's ever taken a bus in her life), go up to Flandrin's gallery, and then "you're going to start talking fast."

Cue Margot, with her own brand of fast-talking: she pretends to be a rival art dealer who's only there because Jeff thought she was being "unethical to a competitor."

In a movie full of fast, funny exchanges, this is one of my favourites: Margot really goes to bat for Jeff here to get him a very sweet deal. 

"Madame, I'll have you know my resources are unlimited. Unlimited. We are giving Mr. Thompson a $2,000 advance," Flandrin tells her. 

Only $2,000? Margot inquires. She jumps it up to $3,000 from her imaginary firm in Boston. Flandrin bumps his offer up to $3,500. But before Jeff can accept, Margot interjects again. 

"My firm has authorized me to go to $4,000," she says. Flandrin bumps up his offer to $5,000 and an exhibit. 

"We'll meet that," Margot assures Flandrin (and Jeff), "And we'll handle his work for only 15%." 

Jeff really wants to just take the offer already, and who can blame him? One bridge too far and Margot's going to price him out of Flandrin's market. But Flandrin offers up one final counter-offer: all that, but they'll take a 10% commission. 

"I'll take it!" Jeff bellows, and tells Flandrin to send the contracts to the Sherry Plaza Hotel, where he's staying until the next day. But before they can leave, Margot tuts in the background: "Only 10%, Mr. Flandrin? Now you're being unethical."

"Young woman, I can be just as unethical as you can," Mr. Flandrin tells her. 

Outside, Jeff thanks Margot for her help. He wants to thank her for everything she did, to which she replies that, "Oh, I was glad to do it, seeing I had no alternative." 

He talks her into a chocolate malted milk with the remaining 10 minutes of her lunch hour. 

There he apologizes for how he first thought she'd be: "one of those society playgirls with nothing to do." But Margot says she's nothing like those women, because women should have careers. Jeff disagrees. "Well, uh, just how do you like your women, Mr. Thompson?"

"Unsophisticated." He likes the women back in Wapakoneta, Ohio, where he's from. He's had entirely too much of New York. 

He tells Margot not to knock small-town Ohio, since his father once created this throat elixir that helped people quit smoking. She tells him to send some to her father, and he promises to do just that and asks for the address. "Just Mark it Sherwood Residence, Port Chester," she tells him. 

Then he draws out what he hopes his family tree will look like someday: a wife to fit in neatly next to his side between his hero father and saint mother. Margot tells him that if he ever finds this (Manic Pixie) dream girl, to bring her to New York, because this is a dame she wants to meet. 

Then she takes off without another word, her lunch break over, and that's that. 

Cut to later that night, in Margot's bedroom. What a spread, eh? 

Margot and her younger sister Vicky are gossiping when their father comes in. Vicky's going out, Margot could've been going out but a date fell through ("I've been promising myself for 11 solid weeks 

to stay home and go to bed early for a change," she tells her sister), and Mr. Sherwood is going to the club. 

In fact, everyone's been given the message to tell Margot that Philip had to go to Connecticut, but she assures them all that she's happy to sit home alone. 

Honestly, Myrna Loy is just the height of elegance. I adore this woman. 

Even the staff are gone this evening, so Margot is truly alone at the Sherwood Residence. 

But then she ponders for a bit and grabs her telephone. "Operator, will you get me the Sherry Plaza, please, in the city." 

At the Sherry Plaza, Jeff's getting his things in order for his return to Ohio. He wants a berth on the train back to Wapakoneta first thing in the morning, which the hotel staff can arrange. 

His phone rings and it's Margot. 

Jeff: I didn't expect to hear from you.

Margot: Didn't you call me? I just came in and there was a message to call a Mr. Rahmland-Thomas-Tonner- I couldn't make out the Butler's handwriting. And the only person I knew whose name it might be was Thompson.

Jeff: Ha ha. No, it wasn't me. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's right. I'll be leaving the first thing in the morning. Mm-hmm. Well, I'll be seeing you. Good-bye.

Then he hangs up on Margot. Then he goes about his business. But then he begins to reconsider. 

"Hey, operator," Jeff says. "Listen, I just had a suburban call, Port Chester. Yeah. Will you see if you can get the party back for me?" 

Margot picks up and they make plans to meet. He wants to properly thank her for the help with Flandrin, and asks how to get out to Port Chester. Nevermind, Margot tells him, she'll come into the city. 

Before she hangs up, with a promise to meet him at Grand Central Station in an hour, he tells her that he doesn't even know her name. Imagine! It's Margot Sherwood, she tells him. 

Cut to the Play Palace, an arcade and overall jam. I'd love to go to an arcade again. 

Turns out they came to the arcade because Jeff hates nightclubs (which Margot's sure they have lots of back in Ohio). 

It's a weakness of mine that if I come across one of these in the wild, I need to have my picture taken in it. 

Anyways, Jeff and Margot banter about his artistic process a bit and it's worth sharing: 

Margot: Tell me. Do you ever paint anything besides scenery? 

Jeff: Sure. Ohio farmhouses. Cattle. I paint a lot of western stuff, too. 

Margot: No, no. I mean portraits.

Jeff: Portraits? No. I leave that to the boys who like to wear smocks and berets. 

Margot: Don't you realize that people would rather have a portrait of a beautiful woman in their living room than something called dawn on rat nose gulch? 

Jeff: Ha ha ha. No. I'll stick to the outdoor stuff. 

Margot: Why? Because when I paint an Ohio cow, I'm the only one who has to like it. And if I painted a society cow, then she'd have to like it.

Jeff's having a good time though, because he tells the hotel to change his train ticket when he gets back to the hotel. 

The next night, he and Margot are out dancing at a nightclub (yes, she managed to lure him there) and he's growing ever fonder of her. "You know, it's funny," he says. "The day before yesterday I could have cheerfully wrung your neck. Now look at me."

May we all find a man to say these words to us (barf). 

They're then seated for dinner and talking about going through Ohio, and how it'd be fun to do things with a partner there, when they're interrupted. 

By a drunken Hughe, who's about to blow everything up for Margot. "I've been looking everywhere for you," he tells her. "You're the most elusive person. You're-you're as elusive as your husband. I haven't been able to find that husband of yours. But don't worry. I got the dragnet out."

"Are you married?" Jeff asks her. Hughe just laughs, like, "Ho ho, oh, brother. You're out with a very impulsive woman," and then he slinks off. 

"And you let me say all that?" Jeff asks. "Well, it's all right. Don't anybody apologize. I understand." He asks why she didn't tell him, and Margot says, instead of telling him that it's all an elaborate lie to keep her job (because she's known this man for two days so what does she owe him, really?), she says that she was waiting for the right time to break the news. 

Jeff: Bring the lady what she wants and then bring me the check. 

Waiter: What do you wish, madame?

Margot: I'll have a chicken sandwich on toast without the bread.

Waiter: I beg your pardon? 

Margot: Uh, just make it a rye sandwich on white bread without the chicken. Without the- never mind.

Just bring it.

Jeff: We're in a hurry to get out of here.

Waiter: Yes, sir.

And now the mood is totally ruined. 

But Margot starts talking about the 'marriage' and how she never really loved this Tony Merrick. "We met in a doorway in the-well, anyway. Uh, we had dinner, and then we drove to a little village, Las Palmas. The village priest married us. The minute I realized the mistake I'd made, I left him. It was over in a week."

Suddenly Jeff's believing her story and ready to forgive her for the 'lie' but then Margot keeps talking, telling him that Tony's eluding her lawyers and she's trying to get a divorce. "I bet I can find him in 10 days," Jeff says. Margot says she doubts it, but Jeff's got a friend in South America who could find him, he just needs a physical description. 

So Margot gives him one. She looks across the room and claps eyes on one of the waiters and beings describing him.

Margot: Well, he's, um, ahem. He's about 36. Tall. Uh... Quite, uh, suave in manner. Dark complexion. 

Very white teeth. Uh... Slightly built. Always seen with the best people. Oh, yes, I remember. Uh, Tony has a scar on his right cheek just below the ear. Black wavy hair parted in the center touched with grey.

Uh... Oh, yes. He two little sideburns.

Jeff: Oh. Two little sideburns.

Margot: Yes. Two. Hmm. Oh, and Tony has a peculiar nervous habit of tugging at his earlobe when he's thinking of anything. 

Jeff: Oh, he has, huh?

Margot: Yes. Tony always did that. Mm-hmm.

Jeff looks up and sees this man Margot's describing through a mirror. 

Jeff: Sort of the sophisticated type? 

Margot: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Be apt to find him in swank places. Probably spends a lot of time in nightclubs, huh? 

Margot: Yes, he does.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. And, uh, where did you see him last?

Margot: In Rio.

Jeff: Oh. How was that when you left him in Las Palmas?

Margot: Oh, that. Well, uh, you see, we were-

Jeff: You said you married him in April, huh? 

Margot: Yes, April. 

Jeff: A minute ago, you said May.

Margot: Oh, well, what happened was-

Jeff: As a matter of fact, you didn't mention any month. 

Margot: Well, anyone's liable to get mixed up when a person is acting deliberately stupid and suspicious.

"You can take me home, if you don't mind," Margot tells him. But he has more questions. 

Jeff: Back in Ohio-

Margot: Ohio. Ha! That's where you belong, back in Wapakoneta. Ha ha ha. You know, you're one of the silliest men I've ever met. Really. You look awfully funny sitting there playing "information, please" with yourself. 

Jeff: Oh. I guess all of this is very amusing, is that it?

Margot: Terribly. Don't bother. I'm quite able to get home by myself.

The waiter arrives with Margot's sandwich-but-not-a-sandwich just after she leaves. "One chicken on toast without the bread and one rye sandwich on white bread plain without the chicken," he says, proud of himself. Jeff pays him and leaves without eating. 

The next morning at the hotel, Jeff's getting a few messages from his friend in South America that are basically this: there never has been any trace of a marriage license Tony Merrick nor a Margot Sherwood in Las Palmas; nor has a passport ever been issued to a Tony Merrick. 

Now Jeff's plotting, and ya can't plot in Ohio. You can paint a mighty pretty cow in Ohio, but you can't plot from there. But what's Jeff plotting? 

He knocks on the door of the Sherwood Residence and tells the Butler that he's looking for Mrs. Tony Merrick. She's not there, the Butler says, but who's asking? "Mr. Merrick." 

Naturally that gets him an invite inside, and Mr. Sherwood comes down to meet his mysterious son-in-law. "My daughter's happiness is important to me, so I think that gives me the right to ask you if you've come here to cause her more upset or arrange a divorce?" 

Well, neither, 'Tony' says. "We talked things over long distance. We decided we were kind of hasty in breaking up so we're going to start over." This thrills Margot's father, who invites Jeff in for a drink and immediately begins treating him like a son. 

Jeff tells him that he's surprising Margot, that she was expecting him at the end of the week. Mr. Sherwood's only too happy to be in on the surprise.

And here's Vicky to meet her brother-in-law. She's also very thrilled and wants to get to know him better while he's there. 

Later, Margot arrives home and has no idea what she's about to walk into. 

Her father tells her there's a surprise waiting for her: Tony. "Tony?" she asks, just as the doors are thrown open and Jeff appears behind them. 

Jeff rushes over to scoop her up into a hug while Margot's trying to scream for her father to listen to her, cause all of a sudden she's ready to tell the truth, but Dad just leaves the happily reunited couple to have some time alone. 

Margot: You rat-brained idiot. Do you realize what you've done? 

Jeff: Sure. You invented a husband, and I'm giving him to you.

Margot: I'm going right in and tell them  that you're an imposter. My husband is in South America. I met you on the ship, and you're annoyed because I won't see you, and you're trying to upset me. 

Jeff: Ok, you tell them and I'll show them. I've got proof that you were never married and that there is

no Tony Merrick. I cabled Las Palmas, bright eyes.

Margot: You-you cabled. 

Jeff: Mm-hmm. I sure did. So if you want to tell them, go right ahead. Then we can both talk.

Margot then ponders what she's even supposed to say to her family. "Tell them it was spring," Jeff tells her. "Tell them it was blossom time. Tell them it was Rio. Or just tell them you had a lapse of memory. So many ways to handle this if you just put your mind to it."

Margot tries another tack: she's in love with someone else (Philip). "You can't be," Jeff says. "It's bigamy." She asks him to please leave and not hurt Philip. 

"I'll go into my office and think about it," Jeff says, retreating behind the curtain. 

But before he can render his verdict, they're interrupted by Mr. Sherwood. 

He's only there to tell them that he just sent a journalist away, they were there to confirm the veracity of the story for their first edition: "'Smart set career girl and husband reunited.' Isn't that cute?"

Margot rounds on Jeff once her father's gone again, accusing him of calling the press, but he didn't. He does, however, like the headline. Margot's going to call up the editor and threaten him for running the story, but before she can, they get sidelined for dinner. With all the guests that Mr. Sherwood called up.

Among them, the now despondent Philip, who can only stare glumly at Margot and 'Tony' from his seat next to Vicky. "I wish I'd stayed in Connecticut," he says. 

Jeff's having the time of his life playing this up for the crowd, telling them all the details about Las Palmas that Margot once made up for him. 

After dinner they're all heading upstairs and Margot's doing everything in her power to not have to share a room with Jeff, but for every excuse she comes up with, like how he loves a long evening stroll before bed, he counters it (with the fact that he only liked those long walks until he met Margot). 

So Jeff sweeps his 'bride' into his arm, Mr. Sherwood smiling all the while, and Margot hooks her fingers into his ear. 

And once they're in the bedroom alone, he dumps her ceremoniously on the chaise. 

Margot: Don't you realize that those women would loved a chance to make fun of me and my family?

Jeff: Yep. Realized it the moment I realized what a prize sucker you'd made out of me. Ouch!

Margot: This comes under the heading of teaching me a lesson, I suppose. 

Jeff: It's wonderful how quick you catch on. You know, there was a man once named Frankenstein who created a monster, and it came to life and made a lot of trouble for him. So, I thought if you wanted to play Frankenstein, you might as well have a monster.

Margot counters this speech by tossing his slippers outside, then locking him out on the balcony. 

Then goes to pout, elegantly, on her bed. 

While Jeff does his bedtime stretches while singing that Ohio song, "What's high in the middle and round on the ends" very obnoxiously, to Margot anyways.

A few hours later, she's awakened by the rain. 

And notices that Jeff's out there sleeping in the middle of a pouring rain storm with the balcony window clanging open and shut.

She does the matronly duty of grabbing him a blanket and shutting the window, but gets blown onto him. "Well! Dropping in for a visit or are you planning to stay for a while?" Jeff asks. 

At breakfast, Jeff's sneezing. Margot's sneezing. They're both sick. 

Mr. Sherwood's back with more papers, this time about their second honeymoon in the country, then he takes off. 

And when Margot proposes that they get a divorce, Jeff puts a damper on the idea. "Listen to me, cutie pie," he says. "You can't go around getting divorces the way you buy hats."

"Oh, can't I?" Margot quips. But he's right. They're not technically married, so they can't technically get divorced. And anyone paying attention is going to sniff around for the records if it hit the papers, so they're stuck.

But Margot has another idea: they'll go off and get quietly married, then they'll go off and get quietly divorced. Jeff's opposed because he's a good man from Ohio and he wants to only go through with marriage once, and it'll be to a nice Ohio gal, and by the way, he's leaving. Thus beginning another cycle of telling someone to pack his stuff, only to have his plans changed a few more times. 

Margot, meanwhile, calls in Philip for legal advice. He jumps immediately to an affair or a criminal record, but Margot poses a hypothetical: "Suppose a person weren't married, and another person came along and said that they were the husband of the first person, when the first person had only invented  the husband to begin with, and the second person made everybody think that he was the husband of the first person. What would the first person do, legally, to get out of it?"

Philip takes a minute to pick up what she's putting down, but once he does, ho boy! He's going to get Margot out of this situation, don't even worry about it. 

He goes to talk to Jeff, and impresses upon him the fact that he needs to do this favour to Margot. 

Philip: Doesn't chivalry mean anything to you? 

Jeff: Just how much chivalry do you mean exactly?

Philip: Ha ha. This isn't the time for flippancy, Thompson.

Anyways, this legal scholar and ardent flame of Margot's has pored over the facts of the case and there's only one way to neatly resolve it: Jeff and Margot have to get a quickie marriage and a quickie divorce. Man-to-man, Philip asks, will Jeff do the right thing? Jeff says an emphatic no. He knows that by doing this it means that Philip and Margot can marry. 

Philip even tosses in some medical advice: to get rid of the congestion, he's got to stand on his head. All the great opera singers do it. 

Philip continues to press his case, asking Jeff to think of the children. And by that he means his own future children, whose existence are being hampered by the fact that their mother is tied up. Jeff says he'll think about it once the cold is gone. But, uh, if they were to get married, where would it be?

Niagara Falls, naturally. 

Which is where we find a very subdued Jeff and Margot tying the knot. 

Jeff picks a random flower and gives it to her as a bouquet. So now they have four hours to kill until their plane comes, so they head over to see the Falls. 

Newlyweds everywhere. The young couple behind them is just beyond happy to be together. 

Jeff and Margot, meanwhile, can't stop bickering. 

But then Jeff runs into a couple he knows back from Ohio, Mr. and Mrs. Kelland. They make small talk and this is where Margot chooses to get some revenge on 'Tony.'

She comes over and interrupts the conversation, talking, in her own words, like a fish wife and making fun of Mrs. Kelland. "What do you think we're doing in Niagara Falls? Huntin' woims?"

And she's on a roll, telling them about their new lives: "I know some Kellands run a butcher shop in Brooklyn. Course, we ain't planning to live in Brooklyn, 'cause Jeff don't want me to work no more. He says even if he is a screwball artist, one breadwinner in the family's enough, so I said okay, didn't I, good-lookin'?"

Naturally, she scares off the Kellands. 

Jeff: That was a nice thing to do!

Margot: You met my friends. 

Jeff: But I didn't act like that. I have to go back and live among those people! Do you know what they'll think?

Margot: I'll bet I can guess.

Back at Smart, Margot's as busy as ever. Tied up in a conference, her secretary says.

Some conference. Winkel barges in, he can't wait with the proofs any longer, and he finds Margot deep in thought.

Pining. 

Winkel tells her that her problem's almost over, since she's taking the train to Reno the next day to get a quickie divorce. He then says how wonderful Philip is compared to Jeff, but Margot stands up for Jeff!

"Oh, I don't know why I'm thinking all this when I'm going to Reno," she tells him. "So, you sure you still want to go to Reno?" Winkel asks her.

Then Philip barges in, all the plans are arranged, but Margot's asking if they have to go right away. Winkel's put it into her head that a marriage that got off to a rocky start doesn't always stay rocky. 

"But, darling, I've made all the arrangements," Philip says. "And I had a talk with Mr. Bixby at the firm about that property settlement, and he agrees with me that with a man like this, an irresponsible pauper..." 

Margot interrupts him at that characterization, and Philip continues: "Well, after all, darling, you are a woman of prominence and means. Unless we have Thompson sign a property settlement, who knows what claims he'll try to make in the future? The marriage is valid, you know."

Philip calls up Jeff at the Sherry Plaza to tell him about the arrangements, but Jeff interjects that he's going to Ohio on the 6pm train. So now he'll have to have everything ready for the evening train, and he'll need to switch his and Margot's train tickets to that evening. 

Philip's the only one up for business when the train leaves. Jeff orders some drinks. 

And Margot's manifesting herself somewhere far away. 

Philip drones on, lawyerly, and gives Jeff a copy to sign. 

Philip's nattering on about where he and Margot will go on their honeymoon (the Grand Canyon), when Jeff interrupts and says he wants legal advice before he signs the agreement. Margot agrees with him, and when Philip chastises her for it, she says that she was trying to be fair.

Out in the corridor, Jeff asks Sam the porter if he knows of anyone who can talk lawyerly for a bit, but Sam does one better:

...he studied law, in fact, so he's perfectly willing to offer Jeff counsel and drone on like a lawyer. He's good at it, too. 

Meanwhile Margot's still staring off into space. 

All legal matters settled, Jeff pays Sam for his counsel and the two men settle in for the night in their berths. 

Jeff sneaks out after Philip's gone to sleep to say goodbye to Margot, just in case he misses her in the morning. 

"Margot. It's me, Jeff. I just want to say good-bye and tell you I'm sorry for all the trouble I made for  you. Margot, I wish you wouldn't feel that way about it. I know you're pretty bitter but won't you see me for just a minute and say good-bye as friends? I won't be seeing you in the morning. Margot?"

But Margot's not in there. Sam is. Jeff plays it off like maybe he was just coming around to remind Sam to wake him up in the morning, but they both know the truth. 

They meet in the corridor, outside the sleeping berths, and neither really wants to leave, so they keep saying good night to each other. 

Passenger: How many times you have to tell that dame good night to make it stick?

So Margot returns to her cabin and you can tell she's given her future serious thought. 

The next morning Sam wakes Philip up with a drink. A double bourbon, he says. He thought he'd give it to Philip as a kind gesture. 

They're in Wapakoneta and the town is welcoming home its hero son. 

Jeff's out on the platform waving to his friends and family. They say they had to rush to gather everyone so quickly once they got his wire the night before, but they managed. "I didn't send any wire," Jeff says.

Out of nowhere, Margot appears and wraps her arm around Jeff. "I did, dear. You know how forgetful he is." 

Philip can only watch in horror. 

As Jeff plants a big ole kiss on Margot's lips. His parents say they've been waiting a long time for this to happen, and Jeff quips, "Oh, boy, so have I!"

Back on the train, Sam pushes the double bourbon back to Philip. "Looks like the case is closed."

THE END!