IT is the old, old, story. Sporty married man, trustful or maybe
designing girl, wool over her optics, girl finally gets wise,
recriminations, breach of promise suit, and—?
Hector Havemeyer and Harriet Hearn comprise the alliterative couple in
the calcium effulgence this time. Havemeyer is a scion of the sugar
magnate; one of whose stunts was to ruin a competitor by bribing a
workman in the rival plant to run a pipe from the syrup tank to the
river and waste fifty or a hundred barrels a day. We mention this to
show that Hector did not inherit a high standard of principle or regard
for the rights of others.
Harriet eked out her truce with profiteering landlords and dry goods
stores by digging muck from under the claws of such customers as
presented themselves for the purpose. Her modest shingle swung in a
barber shop in the Grand Central Station, Graftopolis-on-the-Harlem,
generally known as New York. Hector came, he saw, he—well, you can guess
the rest. Of course he proposed marriage. And of course Harriet sprung
the old song and dance about it being “so sudden.” But when Hector
offered as lagniappe to blow her to a whole slew of diamonds, a kolinsky
cape and a trip South, his suddenness compared to hers as she
Pisa-towered on his caoutchouc and celluloid, mooning: “Hector, I am
thine!” was even as Congress controlling the trusts to a terrier kyoodle
with a turpentine enema.
The fair Harriet was soon installed in a seven-dollar-a-day suite at a
no-questions-asked hotel. Manicurists seldom can afford such things out
of their own earnings, and we will give our readers three guesses as to
who signed the checks for the rent. As long as Hector paid he naturally
was entitled to call as often as he darn pleased, which was about once a
day and then some. Not contented with that he would telephone so often
to her at her place of business that her barber employer ultimatumed
that she must either cut it out or take the gate. Hector also sent
flowers and candy galore. His progenitor had acquired coin in the manner
quoted above; a manner both easy and honorable, and passed it on to
Hector to blow. Hector also pined for special messages from his Dulcinea
del Toboso, and would employ the red cap porters at the station to go to
her and beseech for him a missive of love to ease his near ruptured
cardiac.
The strange part of it all is that at first Hector was too bashful to go
like an avuncular just arrived from Canajoharie and have Harriet extract
the Graftopolis real estate and microbes from the nether side of his
hive-scratchers. Instead he sought the services of a New York Central
detective as his John Alden, the fair Harriet states. But she fell for
the detective presented proposition and consented to the introduction.
The promise of marriage, which Harriet claims was made, might have been
either the last resort of a man dealing with a near-Pamela and cute minx
combined, or else a gratuitous piece of calorified atmosphere. But as
she had to know some day that he could not keep his word without
committing bigamy, Hector preferred that it should be from him rather
than from his vindictive investigating storm-and-strife, or the
serpentine lollypop-licker of Mrs. Grundy. Having had preliminary
practice in another way, he screwed up his courage and broke the news,
although he let her down easy with the hoary classic bucolic cataplasm
about his wife not understanding him, there would soon be a divorce, and
then his Harriet would be =IT=. That was all Harriet wanted to hear. She
flew the seven-dollar-a-day coop whose manager, as there were several
times seven dollars of arrears, was so unkind as to retain her
powder-rag, her tooth-brush, and other feminine impedimenta which we
forbear to catalogue.
Harriet went back to finding her own rent-money, but nevertheless she
did not break with her Hector. Instead she kept Hectoring him with
special delivery letters and telegrams; ditto his wife, although she
charges that in the latter case Hector had fixed all the apartment house
help so that none of her retaliatory revelations would strike home. She
says, too, that her Lothario had the St. Vitus dance even when she was
not in proximity to him. Seeing that he had taken her all and given her
in return nothing but candy, flowers and broken promises, she is going
to try very hard to make him pay, and has brought suit for a hundred
thousand dollars. She exults that she did not sell or give away all her
old clothes and resign her position, as he urged her to do, and says she
would not be in a Gehenna of a fix if she had.
Hector claims that Harriet, like himself, is married to somebody else; a
certain Garry Hearn being the man. But Harriet denies the allegation and
defies the alligator. Hector lives with his wife at 375 Park avenue, New
York. He seems to take it all as a joke, but his Harriet evidently does
not. She alleges that he wooed and won her under the name of Palmer, and
also that he ungallantly refuses to pay the rest of the rent so that she
can get her needful belongings out of hock; and, to make matters worse,
he will not see her any more. But she protests her undying love for him
in spite of the way he has wounded her poor, tender little feelings,
which ought to be easy for her, seeing the size of his saccharine
bank-roll. Heads she wins, tails she loses. Harriet figures she stands
to get a slice of it if he doesn’t make good about divorcing his wife
and marrying her; or, in the other event, she will have the spending of
most of it anyhow. So why shouldn’t modest little Harriet sue? And echo
answers, why?
* * * * *
=The New Supper Menu=
No more liquid glances,
No more pretty speeches;
No more stewed live lobsters,
No more pickled peaches!
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=_Questions and Answers_=
=Dear Captain Billy=—How will I head a story about a prominent Boston
society girl marrying a Providence socialist?—=Cub Reporter.=
Just say: “Plymouth Rock chicken marries Rhode Island Red.”
* * * * *
=Old Wheezy Bill=—My landlord has raised my rent because I have a case
of whisky in my apartments. Now, I don’t like to move and I don’t like
to pay rent and then again its against the law to move the whisky, so
what the’ll shall I do?—=Oberst.=
Your “case” has undoubtedly been disposed of by this time.
* * * * *
=Dear Bill=—To settle a dispute, please tell me what disease is caused
from the microbe of a kiss?—=June Bugg.=
Palpitation of the heart.
* * * * *
=Dear Bill=—The ocean side seems so different this year. Why does it
seem to make me feel so blue?—=Flo Waters.=
I do not know, Flo, unless it’s the wind blowing the froth over the bar
that reminds you of olden days.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=—Why won’t they allow army aviators to take up women
passengers in airplanes?—=May Wheat.=