A cross-country dub named Montrose has been doing the Shine specialty
around Clara Jane lately.
He began to call evenings and bring a bunch of ready-grown flowers
with him as big as a hay stack.
Then he'd spread around the parlor and tell her how he won the
long-distance running jump in the '01 Yale class.
As you approached him from the front the first name you saw was
Clarence--Clarence Edgerton Montrose.
Wouldn't that slap you!
I don't think Clara Jane considered him the real kittens, but he
could talk fast and use long words and she found him pleasant company.
She said she loved to sit and shade her eyes with the $8 fan I gave
her and listen to Clarence Edgerton Montrose while he discoursed
about Palestine and the Holy Land.
If he was ever there he went in a hack.
That's the trouble with some of those college come-outs! The
Professors beat them over the head with a geography and then as soon
as they get a crowd around they begin to go to the places that struck
them hardest.
As an honest, hard-working man it was my duty to put the boots to
Edgerton and run him down the lane as far as the eye could see.
So I framed up Clarence's finish with much attention to detail.
I looked over Clara Jane's dates ahead and found that Clarence had
rented the house for a Wednesday matinee, so I hired one of those
horseless carriage things and pulled up in front of the windows just
about the time I thought His Feathers would be playing the overture.
I knew that Clara Jane would cancel the contract with the mutt that
mixed in just as soon as she saw the automobile snap.
I figured that the picture entitled "The True Lover's Departure in
the Dream Wagon" would put a crimp in Clarence about the size of a
barn door.
It was my third or fourth time behind the lever of the busy barouche,
but I was wise that you pulled the plug this way when you wanted it
to go ahead, and you shoved it back when you wanted it to stop.
When it came to benzine buggies I felt that my education was complete.
I was George Gazazza, the real Rolando, when I pulled up in front of
my lady friend's front gate.
My market price was $18,000 a square inch.
In six minutes by the watch Clara Jane was down and in the kerosene
caravan.
Clarence hadn't arrived.
Somebody must have put him next, but I knew where he lived and I
figured it out that after we came back from Lonely Lane I'd send the
landau around and around the block he camped in till I made him dizzy.
Clara Jane was the feature of the game.
She was the limit in ladies' dress goods.
For a chaser she wore one of those feather boas that feel cool
because they look so warm.
[Illustration: "For a chaser she wore one of those feather boas."]
Well, I turned the horseless gag into the shell road and cut loose.
We were doing about 43 miles an hour and the birdies were singing on
the way.
Clarence Edgerton Montrose was working in Shaft No. 3, back in the
mines--my lady friend told me so.
She was having the time of her life.