ACT I

TATTLE-TALES OF CUPID

_Books by Paul Leicester Ford_

❦

THE HONORABLE PETER STERLING

THE GREAT K. & A. TRAIN ROBBERY

THE STORY OF AN UNTOLD LOVE

THE TRUE GEORGE WASHINGTON

TATTLE-TALES

OF

CUPID

TOLD BY

PAUL LEICESTER FORD

❦

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

1898

_Copyright, 1896_,

BY HARPER AND BROTHERS.

_Copyright, 1898_,

BY THE CENTURY CO.

_Copyright, 1898_,

BY PAUL LEICESTER FORD.

=University Press:=

JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

_TO MY PLAYMATE_

_My dear Doña_:

_Once upon a time two children read aloud together more or less of

Darwin, Spencer, Lyell, Goethe, Carlyle, Taine, and other writers of

equal note. Though the books were somewhat above their comprehension,

and certainly not so well suited to their years as fairy-tales and

romances, both the choice and the rejection were deliberately made and

consistently maintained. The discrimination originated neither in

excessive fondness of fact, nor in the slightest dislike of fiction;

being solely due to a greater preference for the stories they themselves

created than for those they found in books. Presently, one of these two,

having found a new playfellow, stopped inventing and acting and living

their joint imaginings, and the other one had to go on playing by

himself. But he has never forgotten the original impulse, and so, in

collecting the offspring of some of his earliest and some of his latest

play-hours, his thoughts recur to the years of the old partnership, and

he cannot please himself better than by putting his playmate, where she

truly belongs, at the beginning of his “imaginary” playthings._

NOTE

“His Version of It” is reprinted in this form by permission of the

Century Company.

“The Cortelyou Feud” is reprinted by permission of Messrs. Harper and

Brothers.

Contents

❦

_Stories_ PAGE

HIS VERSION OF IT 3

A WARNING TO LOVERS 49

“SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE” 87

THE CORTELYOU FEUD 103

_Plays_

“THE BEST LAID PLANS” 133

“MAN PROPOSES” 197

Tattle-Tales of Cupid

HIS VERSION OF IT

❦

“She’s a darling!” exclaimed the bay mare, between munches of the big

red apple.

“That’s just what she is!” responded the off carriage-horse; and then,

as part of his apple fell to the floor, he added fretfully: “I do wish,

Lassie, that you girls wouldn’t talk to a fellow when he’s doing

something! You’ve made me lose half my apple!”

Old Reveille, with the prudence of twenty-eight years of experience,

carefully deposited the unmasticated fraction of his apple beside an

uneaten one in his manger before remarking reflectively: “She’s a

thoroughbred; but she’s not the beauty her mother was at the same age.”

“Fie!” reproved one of the cobs: “how can you be so ungallant, when she

always gives you an extra apple or piece of sugar?”

“I call it shameful unfairness,” growled the nigh horse of the pair.

“She doesn’t keep you up till two or three in the morning at balls and

cotillions. She doesn’t so much as ride you in the park, as she does

Lassie or Bubbles. When you haven’t done a step of work in six years,

and spend your summers out in the pasture and your winters in a

box-stall eating your head off, why should you get a double portion?”

“Yes,” whinnied Bubbles, plaintively; “and, what’s more, she always

kisses you.”

Reveille, who meantime had swallowed his first apple, looked up with a

lofty smile of superiority. Then he slowly winked his off eye, remarked,

“Naturally, you don’t understand it,” and fell to lipping his second

apple caressingly, previous to the decisive crunch. “See if that doesn’t

drive the women wild,” he cogitated, with a grin.

“Now isn’t that just like a man!” complained Lassie. “As if it wasn’t

enough to get more than his share, but he must go and have a secret

along with it.”

“Huh!” grunted the polo pony, who was, of necessity, the brains-carrier

of the stable; “if it’s family property, it can’t be much of a secret;

for I never heard of anything to which six humans were privy that didn’t

at once become town gossip. And they must be aware of it, for, from the

Major to the Minor, they discriminate in favor of Reveille in a manner

most reprehensible.” The polo pony was famous for the choiceness of his

language and the neatness of his wit; but he was slightly vain, as was

shown by his adding: “Pretty good, that, eh? Major—that’s the man we

take out riding or driving. Minor—that’s the three-year-old. Do you

hitch up to that post?”

“Do they all know your secret, Reveille?” asked Lassie, ingratiatingly.

“They think they do,” replied the veteran. “They don’t, though,” he

added; and then, heaving a sigh, he continued: “But the roan filly did,

and Mr. Lewis’s big grey, and dear old Sagitta—that was the Russian

wolf-hound, who died before any of you youngsters joined our set.”

“Then I fail to perceive,” remarked the polo pony, “why they should

treat you differently, if they are ignorant of the circumstances to

which you refer.”

“My dear colt,” retorted Reveille, “when you are grown to horsehood you

will learn that we are all governed by our imaginations, and not by our

knowledge. Why do you shy at a scrap of white paper? Superficially

because you are nearly related to an ass, actually because your fancy

makes it into a white elephant.”

“And how about your putting your head and tail up, and careering all

over the home lot, last summer, just because our Major fired his

revolver at a hawk? Were you an ass, too?” saucily questioned one of the

cobs.

“Probably,” assented the oldster, genially; “for that very incident

proves my point. What that shot reminded me of was the last time I heard

my Major fire his revolver. I saw a long, gentle slope, up which a

brigade of ‘secesh’ were charging to a railroad embankment protected by

a battery of twelve-pounders firing six rounds of case-shot to the

minute. And I was right among the guns again, seeing and hearing it all;

and my Major—only he was a captain then—was saying as coolly and quietly

as he orders the carriage now: ‘Steady, men, steady! There’s a hundred

yards yet, and they can’t stand it to the finish. Double charge with

canister! Three more rounds will settle them.’ Which was just what it

did. We horses, with the aid of the men and guns, held the Weldon

railroad, and Lee and his mules stopped holding Richmond.”

“Doesn’t he tell a story beautifully?” remarked Bubbles, in a distinctly

audible aside to Lassie.

“I’ve never known a better raconteur,” answered Lassie, in a stage

whisper of equal volume.

“Lay you a peck of oats to a quart that the girls get that secret out of

him,” whispered the Majors saddle-horse, who, as a Kentuckian of

thoroughbred stock, had sporting and race-track proclivities.

“Not with me!” denied the second cob. “Besides, no gentleman ever bets

on a certainty. Gaze at the self-satisfied look on the old fool’s phiz.

Lord! how a pretty face and figure, combined with flattery, can come it

round the old ones!”

There could be no doubt about it. Reveille was smirking, though trying

not to desperately; and to aid his attempt, he went on, with a pretence

of unconscious musing, as if he were still in the past: “Yes; we are

ruled by our imaginations, and, consequently, though I have reached the

honourable but usually neglected period in life which retires an officer

and a horse from active service, I get a box-stall and extra rations and

perquisites.”

“How rarely is the story-telling faculty united with the philosophical

mind!” soliloquised Bubbles to the rafters.

“And how rarely,” rejoined Lassie, “are those two qualities combined

with a finished, yet graphic, style!”

“I would gladly tell you that story,” said the old war-horse, “but it

isn’t one to be repeated. Every horse who isn’t a cow—to make an Irish

bull, which, by the bye, is a very donkeyish form of joke—has done

certain things that he has keenly regretted, even though he believes

that he acted for the good—just as brave soldiers will act as spies,

honourable lawyers defend a scoundrel, and good women give ‘at homes.’”

“What a decadence there has been in true wit!” remarked Lassie, apropos

of nothing. “It is such a pleasure to be put next a horse at dinner

whose idea of humour was formed before youthful pertness was allowed to

masquerade as wit.”

“It is a mortification to me to this day,” went on Reveille, “even

though the outcome has justified me. You know what our equine code of

honour is—how we won’t lie or trick or steal or kill, as the humans do.

Well, for nearly two months I was as false and tricky as a man.”

“I don’t believe it,” dissented Bubbles.

“The truly great always depreciate themselves,” asserted one of the

mares.

“No, ladies, I speak the truth,” reiterated the warrior; “even now the

memory galls me worse than a spur.”

“It would ease your conscience, I am sure,” suggested Bubbles, “to

confess the wrong, if wrong there was. A highly sensitive and chivalric

nature so often takes a morbidly extreme view of what is at most but a

peccadillo.”

“This, alas! was no peccadillo,” sighed Reveille, “as you will

acknowledge after hearing it.”

“I may be a colt, but I’m not a dolt,” sneered the polo pony to himself.

“As if we weren’t all aware that the garrulous old fool has been itching

to inflict his long tail upon us for the last ten minutes.”

“My one consolation,” continued Reveille, “is that the roan filly was in

the traces with me and an equal culprit in—”

“I thought that one of the sex of Adam would saddle it on a woman before

he got through,” interjected the cob.

“_Cherchez la femme!_” laughed the polo pony, delighted to trot out his

French.

“All I meant to suggest, ladies and gentlemen,” affirmed Reveille,

reflectively, “is that a woman is an excuse for anything. If this world

is a fine world, it is because she pulls the reins more often for good

than for bad.”

“‘Those who always praise woman know her but little; those who always

blame her know her not at all,’” quoted the worldly-wise Kentuckian.

Reveille swallowed the last fragment of his second apple, cleared his

throat, and began:—

“It was after Five Forks, where my Captain got a major’s oak-leaf added

to his shoulder-straps, and a Minié ball in his arm, that the thing

began. When he came out of the hospital—long before he should have, for

the bone had been shattered, and took its own time to knit—we hung about

Washington, swearing at our bad luck, my Major suffering worse than a

docked horse in fly-time from the little splinters of bone that kept

working out, and I eating my head off in—”

“History does repeat itself,” murmured the envious carriage-horse.

“Well, one day, after nearly three months of idleness, when I was about

dead with stalldom, I permitted the orderly to saddle me, and after a

little dispute with him as to my preferences, I let him take me round to

Scott Square. There for the first time I met the roan filly and the big

grey. She was a dear!” he added, with a sigh, and paused a moment.

“Ah, don’t stop there!” begged one of the ladies.

“Get a gait on you,” exhorted the cob.

Reveille sighed again softly, shook his head, and then came back to the

present.

“‘May you never lack for oats and grass,’ said I, greeting them in my

most affable style.

“‘May you die in clover,’ responded the grey, nodding politely.

“‘May you have all the sugar you desire,’ added the filly, sweetly, and

greeting me with a graceful toss of the head. That told me that a woman

belonged to her, for men never give sugar. Sometimes, on a forced march,

my Major used to divide his ration of hardtack with me; but I never

tasted sugar until—well, we mustn’t get ahead too fast.”

“No danger, while he is doing the lipping,” grumbled the disagreeable

cob.

“‘I see by your saddle that you are in the service,’ remarked the big

grey. ‘I am not so fortunate. Between ourselves, I think the fellow I

let ride me would do anything sooner than fight—though, now it’s all

over, he says if he’d returned from Europe in time he should have gone

into the army.’

“I shook my head dejectedly. ‘I’m very much off my feed,’ I told them.

‘My Major is not able to ride, and won’t be for a long time, so I’m

horribly afraid I’ve been sold. I really wouldn’t have believed it of

him!’

“‘What things man is capable of doing!’ sighed the filly, with tears of

sympathy in her eyes.

“‘Cheer up, comrade,’ cried the grey, consolingly. ‘Even if you are

sold, you might be worse off. You are still a saddle-horse, and as Miss

Gaiety and I both have good stables, you probably will have the same

luck, since you are in our set. The fellow I carry spurred my

predecessor, when he was leg weary, at an impossible jump in

Leicestershire, and because he fell short and spoiled his knees the

brute ordered him sold, and he was put to dragging a huckster’s cart,

besides being half starved. You’re not so bad off as that yet.’

“Just then three people came out of the house before which we were

standing, and I can’t tell you how my heart jumped with joy, and how my

ears went forward, when I saw that one of them was my Major. For the

instant I was so happy that I felt like kicking up; but the next moment

I was ready to die with mortification at the thought of how I had

cheapened him to strangers. Think of my saying such things to them of

the best man that ever lived!

“‘That’s _my Major_,’ I told them, arching my neck and flicking my tail

with pride. ‘He held the Weldon railroad without—’”

“But you told us a little while ago,” protested Lassie, “that—”

“Yes, yes,” hastily broke in the story-teller with a note of deprecation

in his voice. “Don’t you see, girls, that having just belittled him, I

had to give him the credit of it, though really we horses—But there, I

won’t go into that now.”

“That much is saved!” muttered the cob.

“Walpole,” said the polo pony, “well described a certain period of life

when he denied that a man was in his dotage, but suggested that he was

in his ‘anecdotage.’”

“It was far from my intention—” Reveille began, with dignity.

“I do wish you would bridle your tongues, the two of you,” snapped

Bubbles. “It’s just what I should expect of a colt that has never seen

anything better than a poplar ball and a wooden mallet, and so dislikes

to hear of real battles. Please pay no heed to him, Mr. Reveille.”

“We don’t notice either of them one curb or snaffle bit,” declared

Lassie, “so why should you? Forgive me for interrupting you, and do tell

us what you told the steeds about our Major?”

Reveille hesitated, and then resumed his tale: “‘His battery held the

Weldon railroad without any infantry supports,’ I told them, adding,

‘Sheridan’s right-hand man. Perfect devil at fighting, and the kindest

human in the world.’

“The roan filly, being a woman, answered: ‘He looks both;’ but the grey,

being something more stupid, remarked: ‘Then what made you think he had

sold you?’

“‘Dear Mr. Solitaire,’ cried the mare, ‘you must know that we all say

things in society, not because we think them, but to make conversation.

I knew Mr.—thank you, Mr. Reveille—was joking the moment he spoke.’ I

tell you, gentlemen, women can put the blinders on facts when they

really try!

“‘What do you think of my Felicia?’ asked Miss Gaiety.

“I had been so taken up with my dear that I hadn’t so much as looked at

hers. But, oh, fellows, she was a beauty! Filly built, right

through—just made to be shown off by a habit; hair as smooth as a mare’s

coat, and as long and thick as an undocked tail; eyes—oh, well, halter

it! there is no use trying to describe her eyes, or her nose, or her

mouth, or her smile. She was just the dearest, loveliest darling that I

ever did see!

“Mr. Lewis was putting her up, while my poor dear stood watching them,

with a look in his face I had never seen. Now, when there was anything

to be done, my Major was always the man who did it, and it puzzled me

why he had let Mr. Lewis get the better of him. The next instant I saw

that his right arm was still in a sling, and that his sword-sash was

used to tie it to his body. Then I knew why he had an up-and-down line

in his forehead, and why he bit his mustache.

“‘Can I give you any help, Major Moran?’ asked Mr. Lewis, when he had

helped Miss Fairley mount.

“‘Thanks, no,’ answered my pal, rather curtly, I thought; and putting

his left hand on me, into the saddle he vaulted. But he was foolish to

do it, as he said ‘Ouch!’ below his breath; and he must have turned

pale, for Miss Fairley cried out, ‘Mr. Lewis, quick! He’s going to

faint!’

“‘Nothing of the kind,’ denied my backer, giving a good imitation laugh,

even while his hand gripped my neck and I felt him swerve in the saddle.

‘Miss Fairley, I will not let even you keep me an interesting invalid.

If there was any fighting left, I should long since have been ordered to

the front by the surgeons; but now they wink their eyes at shirking.’

“‘I told you you ought not to go, and now I’m sure of it,’ urged Miss

Fairley. ‘You’ll never be able to control such a superb and spirited

horse with only your left arm.’”

“Bet that’s a subsequent piece of embroidery,” whispered the polo pony

to his nearest neighbor.

“Now, I have to confess that I had come out of the stable feeling full

of friskiness, and I hadn’t by any means worked it off on the orderly,

much of a dance as I’d given him. But the way I put a check-strap on my

spirits and dropped my tail and ears and head was a circumstance, I tell

you.

“‘There’s not the slightest cause for alarm,’ my confrère answered her.

‘The old scamp has an inclination to lose his head in battle, but he’s

steady enough as a roadster.’

“‘I really wish, though, that you wouldn’t insist on coming,’ persisted

Miss Fairley, anxiously. ‘You know—’

“‘Of course, Miss Fairley,’ interrupted my Major, with a nasty little

laugh, ‘if you prefer to have your ride a solitude _à deux_, and I am

in—’

“‘Shall we start?’ interrupted Miss Fairley, her cheeks very red, and

her eyes blazing. She didn’t wait for an answer, but touched up the

filly into a trot, and for the first mile or two not a word would she

say to my colleague; and even when he finally got her to answer him, she

showed that she wasn’t going to forget that speech.

“Well, what began like this went from bad to worse. He wasn’t even aware

that he had been shockingly rude, and never so much as apologised for

his speech. When Miss Fairley didn’t ask him to ride with them the next

day, he ordered me saddled, and joined them on the road; and this he did

again and again, though she was dreadfully cool to him. My dear seemed

unable to behave. He couldn’t be himself. He was rude to Mr. Lewis,

sulky to Miss Fairley, and kept a dreadful rein on me. That week was the

only time in my life when he rode me steadily on the curb. My grief! how

my jaw did ache!”

“I wish it would now,” interrupted the cob, sulkily. Let it be said here

that horses are remarkably sweet-natured but this particular one was

developing a splint, and was inevitably cross.

“Don’t be a nag,” requested one of the mares.

“The roan filly always blamed my Major for making such a mess of the

whole thing; but even though I recognised how foolish he was to kick

over the traces, I saw there were reasons enough to excuse him. In the

first place, he enlisted when he was only nineteen, and having served

straight through, he had had almost no experience of women. Then for six

months he had been suffering terribly with his arm, with the result that

what was left of his nerves were all on edge. He began to ride before he

ought, and though I did my best to be easy, I suppose that every moment

in the saddle must have caused him intense pain. Finally, he had entered

himself for the running only after Mr. Lewis had turned the first

mile-post and had secured the inside track. I really think, if ever a

man was justified in fretting on the bit my chum was.

“At the end of the week Miss Gaiety bade me good-bye. ‘I heard Mr.

Fairley say that we could now go back to Yantic; that’s where we live,

you know,’ she told me. ‘It’s been a long job getting our claim for

uniforms and blankets allowed, but the controller signed a warrant

yesterday. I’m really sorry that we are to be separated. If your

associate had behaved decently, you might have been asked to visit us.’

“‘Yes,’ announced the big grey; ‘Miss Fairley has asked the bully who

rides me and myself to spend a few days with you next week. I suppose

they’ll settle it then.’

“But the officer and horse who commanded the battery which held the

Weldon railroad weren’t going to be beaten as easily as that, you may be

sure! When I took my rider back to the stable that afternoon, I heard

him say to the orderly: ‘Jackson, I’m going north next week, and shall

want Reveille to start before me. I’m in too much pain to give you your

orders now, but come round to-morrow morning and get your instructions.’

“Yantic was nothing but a little village clustered about a great

woollen-mill, without any stable or hotel to live in, so we had to put

up at Norwich, a place seven miles away; and it was a case of put up, I

tell you, in both food and attendance! For a decently brought up horse

to come down to a hotel livery-stable is a trial I never want to go

through again. In the field I never minded what came, but I do hate

musty corn and damp bedding.

“You girls would have laughed to see the roan filly’s face the first

time we met on the road.

“‘Horse alive!’ she cried, without so much as a greeting, ‘you don’t

mean to say you have hopes? Why, Mr. Solitaire and that horrid Mr. Lewis

arrive to-day, and the thing’s probably as good as decided.’

“‘My Major is very resolute,’ said I.

“‘So is a mule,’ snapped Miss Gaiety, ‘but we don’t think the more of

him for that.’”

The polo pony gave a horse laugh as he said, “_That_ was one on you.”

“It was,” acknowledged Reveille; “and I regret to say it made me lose my

temper to such an extent that I retorted, ‘I can’t say much for the

taste of _your_ woman!’

“‘No,’ assented the filly; ‘if what you and Mr. Solitaire say is true,

she’s taking the worse of the two. But then, a human can’t help it. If

you covered a horse all over with clothes, do you think any one would

know much about him? Moreover, two-thirds of what men do or say is said

or done only to fool a woman. How can a girl help making mistakes, when

she’s got nothing to go by but talk? Why, look at it. Your Major seems

balky most of the time, won’t talk half of it, and when he does, says

the things he shouldn’t; while Mr. Lewis is always affable, talks well,

and pays indirect compliments better than any man I ever met.’

“‘If she could only be told!’ I groaned.

“‘She would be, if I could talk,’ sighed the mare. ‘I’d let her know how

he treats his horses!’

“‘Miss Gaiety,’ I ejaculated, ‘I’ve got an idea.’

“‘What?’ she demanded.

“‘Wait a bit till I’ve had time to think it out,’ said I. ‘Gettysburg

wasn’t fought in five minutes.’

“‘Gettysburg was a big thing,’ she answered.

“‘So’s my idea,’ I told her.

In the meantime my Major was explaining to Miss Fairley that the

government had sent him to New London to inspect the ordnance at Forts

Trumbull and Griswold, and that he found it pleasanter to stay in

Norwich, and run down by train to New London for his work. That’s the

way humans lie when it doesn’t deceive any one and it isn’t expected

that it will. Of course Miss Fairley knew what brought him North, and

why he preferred Norwich to New London! One thing he did do, though,

which was pretty good. He apologised to her for having said what he did

before their first ride, told her that his wound had been troubling him

so that at times he scarcely knew what he was saying, and declared he’d

been sorry ever since. He was humble! The Eleventh Battery of Light

Artillery would never have known him.

‘There,’ sniffed Miss Gaiety; ‘if the idiot had only talked in that vein

ten days ago, he might have done something. Oh, you men, you men!’

“At least he won a small favour; for when he asked leave, at parting, to

be her companion the next day in a ride, she told him he might join her

and Mr. Lewis, if he wished. But the permission wasn’t given with the

best of grace, and she didn’t ask him to luncheon before the start.

“I thought out my idea over night, and put it in shape to tell. My Major

took me to the Fairleys’ a little early, and so went in, leaving me

alone. In a minute, however, a groom brought the filly and the grey

round to the door, and with them came Sagitta, the Russian wolf-hound,

whom, it seems, Mr. Lewis had brought from Europe, and had just

presented to Miss Fairley.

“After the barest greetings, I unfolded my scheme. ‘I don’t know,’ said

I, ‘what Mr. Sagitta thinks, but we three are a spike-team in agreeing

that Mr. Lewis is a brute.’

“‘I bow-wow to that,’ assented the dog. ‘He kicked me twice, coming up

yesterday, because I was afraid to go up the steps of the baggage-car.’

‘So far as we can see he is going to win Miss Fairley,’ I continued. ‘As

Miss Gaiety says she’s a dear, I think we ought to prevent it.’

“‘Very pretty,’ says the grey; ‘but, may I ask, who is to interfere and

put the hobbles on him?’

“‘We are to tell her he’s cruel.’

“‘She won’t understand us, if we tell her till doomsday. These humans

are so stupid!’ growled Sagitta.

“‘That’s where my idea comes in,’ I bragged—a little airily, it is to be

feared. ‘We can’t, of course, tell it to her in words, but we can act

it.’

“‘Eh?’ exclaimed the filly, with a sudden look of intelligence.

“‘Not possible,’ snorted the big grey.

“‘I see,’ cried the mare, her woman’s wits grasping the whole thing in a

flash, and in her delight she kicked up her hind legs in the most

graceful manner.

“‘Heyday!’ exclaimed the grey, using our favourite expletive.

“It didn’t take me long to explain to him and Sagitta, and they entered

into the scheme eagerly. We were so hot to begin on it that we pawed the

road all into holes in our impatience.

“Presently out came the three, and then the fun began. Mr. Lewis stepped

forward to mount Felicia, and at once Miss Gaiety backed away, snorting.

Then the groom left us, and tried to hold her; but not a bit of it;

every time Mr. Lewis tried to approach she’d get wild.

“Finally my Major joined in by walking over to help, and the mare at

once put her head round and rubbed it against him, and stood as quiet as

a mouse. So he says: ‘I’ve only my left arm, Miss Fairley, but I think

we can manage it;’ and the next moment she was in the saddle.

“Lewis was pretty angry-looking as he went toward his own horse; and

when he, too, began to back and snort and shiver, he didn’t look any

better, you may be sure of that. You ought to have seen it! The brute

caught him by the bridle, and then the grey kept backing away or dodging

from him. Out on the lawn they went, cutting it up badly, then into Miss

Fairley’s pet bed of roses, then smashing into the shrubberies. I never

saw better acting. Any one would have sworn the horse was half dead with

fright.

“It didn’t take very much of this to make Lewis lose all self control.

“‘You cursed mule!’ he raved, his face white with passion; ‘if I had a

decent whip, I’d cut the heart out of you!’ And suiting the action to

the thought he struck the grey between the eyes with his crop a

succession of violent blows, until, in his fury, he broke the stick.

Then he clenched his fist and struck Solitaire on the nose, and would

have done so a second time if Miss Fairley hadn’t spoken.

“‘Stop!’ she called hotly, and Lewis dropped his fist like a flash.

Felicia was breathing very fast and her cheeks were white, while her

hands trembled almost as much as Solitaire had. Her face wore a queer

look as she continued: ‘I—excuse me, Mr. Lewis, but I couldn’t bear to

see you strike him. He—I don’t think he—something has frightened him.

Please give him just a moment.’ Then she turned to my dear, saying,

‘Perhaps you can calm him, Major Moran?’

“I should think he could! Talk of lambs! Well, that was Solitaire when

my Major went up to him. He let himself be led out of the flower-bed

back to the road as quiet as a kitten. The moment Lewis tried to come

near him, however, back away he would, even from my confrère. The groom

tried to help; but it takes more than three humans to control a horse

who doesn’t want to be controlled.

“After repeated attempts they got tired of trying; and then Mr. Lewis

suggested, with a laugh that didn’t sound nice: ‘Well, Major, we mustn’t

cheat Miss Fairley of her afternoon; and since you seem able to manage

my beast, perhaps you’ll ride him, and let me take yours?’

“Usually I should have been very much pained at my comrade’s nodding his

head, but this time it was exactly what I wanted. Whoop! Ride me? Neigh,

neigh! If you ever saw a coward in an ague of a blue funk, that is what

I was. I blessed my stars none of the Eleventh Battery were round! Lewis

tried; but, do his best, I wouldn’t let him back me. When my Major

interfered, I sidled up to my dear just as if I couldn’t keep away from

him; but when he attempted to hold me for Lewis to mount, I went round

in a circle, always keeping him between me and the brute. It was oats to

me, you’d better believe, to see the puzzled, worried look on Miss

Fairley’s face as she watched the whole thing.

“Well, they discussed what they called ‘the mystery,’ and finally agreed

that they couldn’t ride that afternoon, so we horses were sent down to

the stable, and the three went back to the verandah. Sagitta told me

afterward what happened there.

‘Come here, pup,’ calls Lewis to him, the moment they were seated.

“Sagitta backed away two steps, bristling up, and growling a bit.

“‘Come here, you brute!’ ordered Lewis hotly, rising.

“Sagitta crouched a little, drew his lips away from his fangs, and

pitched his growl ‘way down in his throat.

“‘Look out! That dog means mischief,’ cried my Major.

“‘Are the animals possessed?’ roared Lewis, his voice as angry as

Sagitta’s snarl, yet stepping backwards, for it looked as if the dog

were about to spring.

“But my Major didn’t retreat—not he! He sprang between the wolf-hound

and Miss Fairley. ‘Down, sir!’ he ordered sharply; and Sagitta dropped

his lips and his bristles, and came right up to him, wagging his tail,

and trying to lick his hand.

“‘Isn’t it extraordinary?’ cried Miss Fairley, with a crease in her

forehead. ‘Here, Sagitta!’

“‘Miss Fairley, be careful!’ pleaded my Major; but there wasn’t the

slightest necessity. Sagitta was by her side like a flash, and was

telling her how he loved her, in every way that dog could. And there he

stayed till Lewis came forward, when he backed away again, snarling.

“Now, in all their Washington intercourse my Major had been the surly

one; but in the interval he had evidently had time to realise his

mistake, and to see that he must correct it. Probably, too, he wasn’t

depressed by what had just taken place. Anyway, that afternoon he was as

pleasant and jolly as he knew how to be. But Mr. Lewis! Well, I

acknowledge he’d had enough to make any man mad, and that was what he

was. Cross, sulky, blurting out disagreeable things in a disagreeable

voice, with a disagreeable face: he did make an exhibition of himself,

so Sagitta said.

“After as long a stay as was proper, my Major told them he must go, and

I was brought round. Miss Fairley came to the stoop with him, and didn’t

I prick up my ears when I heard her say:

“‘Since you were defrauded of your ride to-day, Major Moran, perhaps you

will lunch here to-morrow, and afterward we will see if we can’t be more

successful?’

“The next day our interference was done a little differently. When we

were brought round to the door, there was Mr. Lewis with a pair of

cruelly big rowelled spurs on his boots, a brutal Mexican quirt in his

hand, and a look on his face to match the two. Of course the grey gave

him a lot of trouble in mounting, but we had already planned a different

policy; and so, after enough snorting and trembling to make Felicia look

thoughtful, he finally was allowed to get on Mr. Solitaire’s back.

“Much good it did him! The filly and I paired off just as if we were

having a bridle trip in double harness; but do his best, Mr. Lewis could

not keep the grey abreast of us. Twenty feet in front, or thirty feet

behind, that was where he was during the whole ride, and Lewis fought

one long battle trying to make it otherwise. He had had the reins

buckled to the lower bar of the curb, so it must have been pretty bad

for the grey, but there was no flinching about him.

“Every now and then I could hear the blows of the quirt behind me; and

when, occasionally, the grey passed us, I could see his sides gored and

bleeding where they had been torn by the spurs, and bloody foam was all

round his jaw, and flecked his chest and flanks. But he knew what he

meant to do, and he did it without any heed to his own suffering. There

was joy when the filly told us that every time the swish of the quirt

was heard she could feel her rider shiver a little; and Felicia must

have been distressed at the look of the horse, for she cut the ride

short by suggesting a return home.

“Sagitta informed us afterward that if Mr. Lewis had been bad the day

before, he was the devil that afternoon on the verandah, and Miss

Fairley treated him like one. What is more, she vetoed a ride for the

next day by saying that she thought it was getting too cold to be

pleasant. When we had ridden away, Solitaire later told me, she excused

herself to Mr. Lewis, and went to the stable and fed the grey with

sugar, patting him, and telling the groom to put something on the

spur-gashes.

“We horses didn’t hear anything more for three days, at the end of which

time my pal and I rode over one morning, and reminded Miss Fairley that

she had promised to show us where we should find some fringed gentians;

and though it was the coldest day of the autumn, Felicia didn’t object,

but ordered Miss Gaiety saddled, and away we went.

“We really had a very good time getting those gentians! Nothing was ever

done with the flowers, however, owing to circumstances which constitute

the most painful part of my confession. For a horse and an officer, I

had been pretty tricky already, but that was nothing to the fraud I

tried to perpetrate that morning. After our riders had mounted for the

return to Yantic, I suggested to Miss Gaiety what I thought would be a

winning race for my Major, which was neither more nor less than that she

should run away, and let him save Miss Fairley. The roan came right into

the scheme, and we arranged just how it was to be managed. She was to

bolt, and I was to catch her; but since my Major had only his left arm,

as soon as she felt his hand on the rein she was to quiet down; and I

have no doubt but it would have been a preeminently successful coup if

it had been run to the finish.

“What actually happened was that the mare bolted at a rabbit which very

opportunely came across the road, and away she went like a shell from a

mortar. I didn’t even wait for orders, but sprang after her at a pace

that would have settled it before many minutes. Just as I had got my

gait, however, my poor dear gave a groan, reeled in his saddle, and

before I could check myself he pitched from my back to the ground. I

could not stop my momentum under thirty feet, but I was back at his side

in a moment, sniffing at him, and turning him over with my nose, for his

wounded arm was twisted under him, and his face was as white as paper.

That was the worst moment of my life, for I thought I’d killed him. I

put my head up in the air, and didn’t I whinny and neigh!

“The filly, finding that something wrong had happened, concluded to

postpone the runaway, and came back to where I was standing. Miss

Fairley was off her like a flash, and, kneeling beside my treasure,

tried to do what she could for him, though that really wasn’t anything.

Just then, by good luck, along came a farmer in an oxcart. They lifted

my poor dear into it, and a pretty gloomy procession took up its walk

for Yantic.

“When we arrived at the Fairleys’ house, there was a to-do, as you may

imagine. He was carried upstairs, while I went for the doctor, taking a

groom with me, because humans are so stupid that they only understand

each other. I taught that groom a thing or two about what a horse can do

in the way of speed that I don’t believe he has ever forgotten.”

“Did you do better than 1.35½?” inquired the Kentuckian; but Reveille

paid no heed to the question.

“After that sprint I had about the dullest month of my life, standing

doing nothing in the Fairleys’ stable, while nearly dying of anxiety and

regret. The only thing of the slightest interest in all that time

occurred the day after our attempted runaway, when Mr. Lewis came down

to the stable, and gave orders about having the big grey sent after him.

He wasn’t a bit in a sweet temper—that I could see; and though I

overheard one of the grooms say that he was to come back later, as soon

as the nurse and doctors were out of the house, the big grey thought

otherwise, and predicted that we should never see each other again. Our

parting was truly touching, and put tears in the filly’s eyes.

“‘Friends,’ said Solitaire, ‘I don’t think he will ever forgive me, and

I suppose I am in for a lot of brutality from him; but I am not sorry.

If you ever give me another thought please say to yourself: “He did his

best to save a woman from having her life made one long night-mare by a

cruel master.”’

“Nothing much happened in the weeks my Major was housed, with the

exception of one development that had for me an extremely informing and

delightful quality. One day, about a month after our cropper, Felicia

came down to the stable, and without so much as a look or a word for

Miss Gaiety, came straight into my stall, flung her arms about my neck,

and laid her soft cheek caressingly against it, for some moments. Then

she kissed me on the nose very tenderly, and offered me what I thought

were some little white stones. I had never tasted sugar before, and

nothing but her repeated tempting and urging persuaded me to keep the

lumps in my mouth long enough to get the taste on my tongue. (I have to

confess that since then I have developed a strong liking for all forms

of sweetmeats.) What is more, she came down every day after that, and

sometimes twice a day, to caress and feed me. There was no doubt about

it, that for some reason she had become extraordinarily fond of me!

“It is awfully hard in this world to know what will turn out the best

thing. As a matter of fact, the tumble off my back was about the

luckiest accident that ever befell my Major; for it broke open the old

wound, and as the local doctors did not have six hundred other injured

men under them, they could give it proper attention, which the hospital

surgeons had never been able to do. One of them extracted all the pieces

of bone, set the arm, and then put it in a plaster jacket, which ought

to have healed it in good shape very quickly. But for some reason it

didn’t. In fact, I became very much alarmed over the length of my

Major’s convalescence, till one day I overheard one of the stablemen

say:

“‘Lor’! He won’t get well no too fast, with Miss Felicia to fluff his

pillers, an’ run his erran’s, an’ play to him, an’ read aloud to him,

an’ him got nothin’ to do but just lay back easy an’ look at her.’

“Then I realised that it would be some time before he would feel strong

enough to go back to his ordnance inspecting.

“Finally, one afternoon, the filly and I were saddled and brought round

to the front door, and there were Miss Fairley and my Major, both

looking as well and happy as their best friend would want to see them.

It was a nice day, and away we went over the New England hills.

“There wasn’t much surliness or coolness on that ride, and what they

didn’t talk about is hardly worth mentioning. After they had fairly

cantered, conversationally, for over three hours, however, they slowed

down, and finally only Felicia tried to talk, and she did it so jerkily

and confusedly, with such a deal of stumbling and stammering, that

presently, try her best, she had to come to a halt, too. Then there was

a most awkward silence, until suddenly my Major burst out, more as if

the sentence were shot from a gun than as if he were speaking it:

“‘Oh, Felicia, if you could only—’

“That seemed to me too indefinite a wish to answer easily, and

apparently Miss Fairley thought the same, for another silence ensued

which was embarrassing even to me. So far as I could make out, my Major

could not speak, and Miss Fairley would not. I was as anxious as he was

to know what she would say, and in my suspense I suddenly conceived an

idea that was little short of inspiration, though I say it who ought

not. I asked the roan filly:

“‘Is your Felicia resting her weight on the side toward my Major, or on

the side away from him?’

“‘She has a very bad seat in her saddle,’ the mare told me, ‘and she is

resting all her weight on the side next you.’

“‘Then, Miss Gaiety,’ I suggested, ‘I think they will like it if we

snuggle.’

“‘Well, just for this once I will,’ replied the filly, shyly.”

Reveille turned in his stall, and, walking over to his manger, picked up

a wisp of hay. But the action was greeted by an outburst from the

ladies.

“Oh, you are not going to stop there, dear Mr. Reveille!” they chorused.

“I always did hate a quitter on the home stretch,” chimed in the

discontented cob, pleased to have a grievance.

The narrator shook his head.

“No gentleman,” he asserted, “who overheard what followed would ever

tell of it; and a horse has an even higher standard of honour.”

“Ah, darling Mr. Reveille,” pleaded the feminine part of his audience,

“just a little more!”

“I hate to seem mulish,” responded the horse, “and so I will add one

small incident that is too good not to be repeated. When we rode up to

the house that evening, shamefully late for dinner, my Major lifted Miss

Fairley off Miss Gaiety in a way that suggested that she might be very

breakable, and, after something I don’t choose to tell you about, he

said:

“‘I wonder if we shall ever have another such ride!’

“‘It doesn’t seem possible, Stanley,’ whispered my Felicia, very softly.

‘You know, even the horses seemed to understand!’”

Just as Reveille finished thus, a human voice was heard, saying:

“You will have the veterinary see the cob at once, and let me know if it

is a case which requires more than blistering.”

Then came a second and very treble voice. “Papa,” it begged, “will oo

lif’ me up on ol’ Weveille’s back?” And the next moment a child of three

was sitting astride the old warrior and clinging to his mane.

“Well, you old scoundrel,” said the human, “do you know you are getting

outrageously fat?”

“Weveille isn’t not any scoundwel,” denied the child, earnestly. “Mama

says Weveille is a’ ol’ darlin’.”

“Your mama, fortunately for Reveille and me, always had a soft spot for

idiots,” explained the man, stroking the horse’s nose affectionately.

“But I will say this for the old fellow: if most folly resulted as well

as his, there would be a big premium on fools.”

Reveille winked his off eye at the other steeds.

“Aren’t these humans comical?” he laughed.

A WARNING TO LOVERS

❦

Before some blazing logs, which fill a deep fireplace with warmth that

overflows to just the right extent into the room, stands, slightly

skewed, a sofa. The sofa is a comfortable one. It is short, deep, and

low; and the arms have a suggestion of longing to be filled that is

truly seductive. In addition, two down cushions imply that the sofa is

quite prepared to fit itself to any figure, be it long, short, broad, or

narrow. Altogether, it is a most satisfactory sofa.

But the satisfactoriness does not end here. Seated at one end of that

sofa is a girl, clearly in that neither grass nor hay period, which

begins at sixteen and ends at eighteen. Not that it is intended to

suggest that because the girl is neither hay nor grass she is

unattractive. Quite the reverse. New-mown hay is the sweetest, and the

girl, if neither child nor woman, is, in her way, just as sweet.

In algebra, when _a_, _b_, and _c_ are computed, it is possible to find

the unknown quantity _x_. Applying an algebraic formula to the above, we

at once deduce what is necessary to complete the factors. It may be

stated thus: _a_, a sofa, plus _b_, a charming girl; and as _a_, a sofa,

must be divided by two, we find the unknown quantity to be _x_, a man,

and the product of our _a_, _b_, and _x_ to equal _xxx_, or triple

bliss. Nor is this wrong. The sofa does not do more than seat two people

comfortably, yet at the present moment there are little spaces at both

ends. Concerning the other details of this _a ÷ 2 + b + x − 0_ (_i. e._

Mrs. Grundy), it seems needless to enlarge.

“And isn’t it wonderful, Freddy, that you should love me and I should

love you?” cooed the girl.

“Just out of sight,” replied Freddy.

Most people would agree with the above remarks, though the circumstance

of a man and woman occasionally loving each other is a phenomenon

recognised, if not approved, by science. But though these two did not

know it, there was a wonder here. Freddy has been spoken of in the

masculine gender, because, as Shakespeare wrote: “The Lord made him,

therefore let him pass for a man.” Otherwise his manliness was open to

debate. Lovable the girl unquestionably was, or at least very fast

verging upon it, but it passeth human intelligence how Freddy could

inspire any sort of feeling except an intense longing for a gun loaded

with goose-shot.

“And that we should have loved each other for so long, and never either

of us dreamed that we cared one little bit for each other,” continued

the girl.

Freddy did not assent to this sentiment as readily as to the former.

Freddy had been quite sure that Frances had been pining for his love in

secret for some months. So he only remarked: “We got there all the

same.”

“Yes,” assented Frances. “And we’ll love each other always, now.”

“But I say,” inquired Freddy, “what do you think your father and mother

will say?”

“Why, they’ll be delighted,” cried the girl. “It couldn’t be better.

Cousins,—and just the same age—and, and— Oh, lots of other reasons, I’m

sure, but I can’t think of them now.”

“Let’s tell them together,” suggested Freddy, courageously.

“Freddy! Of course not. That isn’t the right way. No, you must request

an interview with papa in his library, and plead eloquently with him.”

“I suppose I must,” answered Freddy, with a noticeable limpness in his

voice and vertebræ.

“Wouldn’t it be fun if he should refuse his consent!” exclaimed the

girl.

Freddy did not recognise the comical quality. “I don’t see it,” he

moaned.

“Why, it would be so romantic! He would of course order you to leave the

house, and never, never darken his doors again. That’s what the father

always does.”

“You think that’s fun?”

“Such fun! Then, of course, we should have to arrange for romantic

meetings, and secret interviews, and you would write little letters and

put them in a prayer-book in our pew; and watch to get a glimpse of me

as I go in and out of places; and stand on the opposite side of the

street each night, till you saw the light in my room put out. Oh! What

fun it will be!”

“It might be raining,” complained Freddy.

“All the better. That would prove your devotion. Don’t you love me

enough to do that?”

“Yes,” said Freddy, meekly, “but I hate getting wet. Sometimes one

catches a nasty cold.”

“Any one who tells a girl he loves her with a fervour and passion never

yet equalled by man should not think of such things,” asserted Frances,

disapprovingly.

Freddy had an idea that a girl who reciprocated such a passion should

not seem so happy over the prospect of her lover undergoing the

exposure, but the youth did not know how to express it. So he proposed:

“Let’s keep it a secret for the present.”

“Let’s,” assented Frances. “We won’t tell any one for a long time, but

just have it all to ourselves. And when I am riding in the morning you

must join me; the groom will think it’s all right. And whenever papa and

mama are to be out in the evening, I’ll put a lamp in my window, and—”

Ting!

It seemed as if some of the electric current which made that distant

muffled ring had switched and passed through the happy pair. Both

started guiltily, and then both listened with the greatest intentness;

so intensely, that after a moment’s pause they could hear the soft

gliding sound of the footman’s list slippers as they travelled down the

hallway; could hear the click of the lock as he opened the front door;

could hear the murmur of voices; could hear the door closed. Then, after

a moment’s silence, a voice, for the first time articulate to them,

said: “I’ll wait in the morning room.”

“Freddy,” gasped the girl, “it’s that horrid Mr. Potter. Quick!”

Both had arisen from the sofa, and Freddy looked about in a very badly

perplexed condition. He was quite willing, but about what was he to be

quick?

“Sit down in that chair,” whispered the girl, pointing to one at a more

than proper distance, and Freddy sprinted for it, and sat down. The girl

resumed her seat on the little sofa, and putting her hands in a demure

position, rather contradictory to her quick breathing and flushed

cheeks, began: “As you were saying, the De Reszke brothers were the only

redeeming— Oh! Good evening, Mr. Potter.”

“Good evening, Frances,” responded a tall, rather slender,

strong-featured man, attired in evening dress, who had leisurely

strolled into the room, and who did not offer to go through the form of

shaking hands. “Talking to the fire?”

“No. Freddy and I were chatting about the opera.”

Mr. Potter put on his glasses and languidly surveyed the region of the

fireplace. Then he turned and extended his investigation, till his eyes

settled on Freddy, stuck away in the dim distance.

“Oh, are you there, youngster?” he remarked, in a tone of voice implying

that the question carried no interest with it. He looked at his watch.

“Isn’t it rather late for you two?”

“It’s only quarter past ten,” answered Frances, bristling indignantly.

“And if it were twelve it wouldn’t make any difference.” To herself she

said, “How I hate that man! Just because he’s thirty-four, he always

treats us as if we were children; and the way he tramples on poor, dear

Freddy is outrageous!”

“You don’t seem to be very sociably inclined,” said Mr. Potter. “From

the distance between you I should think you two chicks had been

quarrelling. Come, make it up.”

“Not at all,” cried Frances, indignantly. “I never lose my temper;

except when you are here.”

“Is that the reason you haven’t asked me to sit down?” asked Potter,

smiling.

“Of course you are to sit down, if you want,” exclaimed Frances. “Here.”

And she moved the four inches towards her end of the sofa that had not

been occupied under the previous arrangement.

Mr. Potter seated himself leisurely in Freddy’s old place, and arranged

one of the cushions to fit the small of his back. “I came to say

good-bye to your mother,” he explained, “and as I’m too busy to stop in

to-morrow, I decided to wait. You youngsters needn’t think it necessary

to sit up to entertain me. Won’t Freddy’s mother be sending his nurse

for him if he stays much later?”

“I’m so glad you are going to Europe,” remarked Frances. “I hope you’ll

stay a long while.”

Mr. Potter put his glasses on again and looked at Frances calmly.

“Hello!” he said mentally, “the kitten’s learning how to hiss.” Aloud he

announced: “I shall only be gone for a month or two,—just the voyage and

a change.”

“What a pity!” responded Frances, bitingly.

“I thought you’d miss me,” replied Mr. Potter, genially.

Frances gave an uneasy movement on the sofa, a cross between an angry

shake of the shoulders and a bounce.

“Where are you going?” questioned Freddy at this point, feeling that as

a grown man he must bear his part of the chat.

“Look here, littleun,” said Mr. Potter, “if you expect me to talk to you

back there, you—” At this point he suddenly ceased speaking, as if

something more interesting than his unfinished remark had occurred to

him.

“Freddy found it too warm by the fire,” explained Frances hastily,

guilty at heart, if to outward appearance brazen. But Mr. Potter did not

hear what she said, and sat looking into the fire with a suddenly

serious look, which nevertheless had a laugh not very far underneath.

After quite a pause, Frances said: “How entertaining you are!”

“Yes,” assented Mr. Potter, coming back from his thoughts; “I always

enjoy myself, and I find that other people do the same.” Then he again

relapsed into meditation.

“Isn’t he just as horrid as can be?” raged Frances, inwardly. “He

believes just because some women think him clever, and because men like

him, and because he’s a good business man, and because mama’s always

praising him to his face, as she would any one who was papa’s partner,

that he is perfect. And no matter how you try to snub him, he is so

conceited that he won’t see it. Horrid old thing!” Aloud she asked,

“What are you thinking about?”

Mr. Potter laughed. “That’s a great secret,” he asserted.

⁂

An hour later, Mr. Potter was seated in a library, smoking, with a glass

of seltzer—and something else—at his elbow. Opposite to him sat a man of

perhaps twice his years, equally equipped with a cigar and seltzer—and

something else.

“Well,” remarked the senior, “I think if we can get the whole issue at

82½ and place them at 87 and accrued interest, we had better do it.”

“That’s settled then,” agreed Mr. Potter. “Now, is there anything else?

I don’t want to have cablegrams following me, since I’m going for a

rest.”

“No,” replied the other. “I know I shall want my partner’s advice often

enough, but I’ll get on without you. Take a rest. You can afford it.

There’s nothing else.”

“Then if you are through with business, I want to speak to you of

Frances,” said Mr. Potter.

Mr. De Witt turned and looked at Mr. Potter quickly. “What about?”

“Do you know that that girl’s grown up, and we none of us have realised

it?”

“Well?”

“And do you know that she has seen next to no people,—that her morning

ride, her studies, and her afternoon drive with her mother are the only

events of her day?”

“Well?”

“And that her summers, off in that solitary country house of yours, with

never a bit of company but Freddy De Witt and myself, are horribly dull

and monotonous?”

“Well?”

“And that to kill time she reads a great many more novels than is good

for any one?”

“Come, come, Champney, what are you driving at?”

“One more question. Mrs. De Witt and you are dining out almost nightly.

What do you suppose Frances does evenings?”

“Does? Plays a bit, and reads a bit, and goes to bed like a good child.”

“But I tell you she isn’t a child any longer, so you can’t expect her to

behave like one. It dawned upon me this evening, and the quicker it

dawns upon you the better.”

“Why?”

“Do you want her to make a fool of herself over Freddy?”

“Freddy!”

“Yes, Freddy.”

“Ridiculous! Impossible!”

“Because they are a long way towards it, and if you want to end it,

you’ll have to use drastic measures.”

“Her own cousin, and only eighteen! I never heard of such folly.”

“But I tell you those two think they are in love with each other, and if

you don’t do something, they’ll really become so before long. Thinking a

thing is two-thirds of the way to doing it, as is shown by the mind

cure.”

“I’ll put an end to it at once,” growled Mr. De Witt. “Never heard of

such nonsense.”

“And how will you end it?” inquired Mr. Potter, smiling a little.

“End it? Tell them to stop their foolishness. Send him about his

business.”

“I thought that would probably be your way. Don’t you think it would be

better to get an injunction from the courts?”

“What good would an injunction do?” asked Mr. De Witt, crossly.

“Just as much good as your method. You can no more stop boys’ and girls’

love by calling it foolishness than the courts can. If you do as you

propose, you’ll probably have a runaway match, or some other awful bit

of folly.”

“Well, what can I do?”

“The best thing is to pack your trunks and travel a bit. That will give

her something else to think about, and she’ll forget all about the

little chap.”

“But I can’t leave the business.”

“The business will run itself. Or, if it won’t, what’s a year’s profits

compared to your only daughter’s life happiness?”

“But the bonds?”

“Don’t bid on them.”

“I can’t go. I can’t leave my business. Why, I haven’t been away from it

for more than a week in forty years.”

“All the more reason for going now.”

“I have it. Her mother and she shall sail with you.”

“Oh, get out!” ejaculated Champney, “I’m going for a rest.” Mr. Potter

had been the slave for many years of two selfish sisters and a whining

mother,—a mother who loved to whine,—and womankind meant to him an

absolute and entire nuisance.

“That’s it,” said the senior partner, regardless of this protest. “You

arrange to stay for six months instead of two. I’ll do your work

gladly.”

“I can’t,” groaned Potter.

“Come, Champney,” wheedled the elder, “you say yourself that my little

girl’s life happiness depends on her going. For my sake! Come! I did a

good turn for you—or at least you’ve always said I did—in the

partnership. Now do one for me.”

Potter sighed. He was used to being martyrised where women were

concerned and had not learned how to resist. “Well, if you say so. But

I’ll have to leave them there. Two months is my limit.”

“All right,” assented the senior, gleefully.

“Perhaps,” thought Potter, “perhaps they won’t be able to pack in time.”

And the idea seemed to please him.

For half an hour longer they chatted, and then Potter rose.

“Tell me, Champney,” inquired the senior, “how did you find out about

it?”

“Oh,” laughed Champney, “that’s telling.”

⁂

The next day there was woe in Israel. Mr. De Witt was cross over the

“children’s folly,” as he called it. Mrs. De Witt was deeply insulted at

such sudden and peremptory marching orders. “Men are so thoughtless,”

she groaned; “as if one could be ready to go on a day’s notice!”

Champney was blue over the spoiling of his trip. Freddy, when he heard

the news, was the picture of helplessness and misery, and only added to

the friction by coming round and getting in everybody’s way, in the rush

of the packing. As for Frances, she dropped many a secret tear into the

trunks as her belongings were bestowed therein. Never, it seemed to her,

had true love been so crossed.

“I know Mr. Potter is at the bottom of it.” (Frances was not alluding to

the trunk before which she knelt.) “He’s always doing mean things, yet

he never will acknowledge them. He won’t even pay me the respect of

denying them.” Frances slapped a shawl she was packing, viciously. “To

think of having to travel with him! He won’t even look at me. No. He

doesn’t even pay me the compliment of looking at me. I don’t believe

he’s even noticed my eyes and eyelashes.” Frances gazed into a

hand-glass she was about to place in the trunk, and seemed less cross

for a moment after the scrutiny. “He’s just as snubby as he can be. I

hate snubby people, and I’ll be just as snubby to him as I know how.

I’ll—”

“Good afternoon, Frances,” interrupted a voice, which made that young

lady nearly jump into the trunk she was bending over. “I came up to see

if I could do anything for you or your mother, and she sent me in to ask

you.”

Frances was rather flushed, but that may have been due to the stooping

position. “I don’t think of anything,” she answered.

“I’ve had some chairs sent on board, and laid in novels and smoked

glasses and puzzles; and oysters, and game, and fruit, and butter,” said

Champney, with a suggestion of weariness, “and I don’t think of anything

else. If you can suggest something more, I’ll get it.”

“I don’t know— Yes. You might change your mind and let us stay at home,”

snapped Frances.

“Don’t blame me for that,” laughed Champney. “That’s your father’s

doings.”

“I know you were at the bottom of it,” charged Frances.

“My dear child—” began Champney.

“I’m not _your_ child, and I’m not _a_ child, and I won’t be deared by

you,” cried Frances.

“Madame Antiquity,” responded Champney, bowing, “I assure you, that far

from wishing to force you to go on this trip with me, I only agreed to

take you, at your father’s request, and at a great personal sacrifice to

myself.”

Frances turned, and banged down the lid of her trunk. Then she banged it

again, to get the hasp to fit. Then she picked up a pair of discarded

boots and threw them across the room, hitting Freddy, who entered at

that moment.

“Why, sweetness!” gasped Freddy, who did not see Champney.

“Oh, go away,” cried Frances, blushing. “Don’t bother me! Can’t you see

I’m too busy to waste time now?”

And to illustrate the callousness of man to true love, it is regrettable

to state that Champney slipped out of the door at this point, with an

expression of great muscular tension about his mouth, and no sooner was

he in the hall than the brute reeled up against the wall and, leaning

there, laughed to a sinful degree.

Then he walked to the end of the hall, and entering a room, also

cluttered with trunks, he sat upon one of them and retold the scene to

the woman packing. “I never saw anything so delicious in its way,” he

laughed. “I really believe the medicine’s begun to work already. But do

you know, Frances promises to be a tremendous beauty. Just now, when her

cheeks and eyes were blazing so, she was simply glorious to look at.”

Which shows that Champney’s cool, disregarding manner was not more than

skin deep, and that unlimited possibilities lay underneath. Perhaps,

too, another potion was beginning to work.

“I’m sorry she is so childish with you, Champney,” said Mrs. De Witt.

“Don’t trouble yourself about that. I really don’t mind it; indeed, I am

afraid I rather enjoy it. It’s much rougher on her than on me, for she

really feels it, and it’s the person who loses his or her temper who

suffers the most.”

“I hope the dear child will try to be more amiable, for naturally she’s

sweetness itself, and it’s bad enough to be saddled with us without

making your trip worse than need be. It’s so good of you to take us!”

“Dear lady,” answered Champney, tenderly, “it’s nothing but a little

set-off against your years of goodness to me. You have really given me a

second home; nothing I can ever do will make me other than your debtor.”

“It’s nice to hear you say so, Champney,” said Mrs. De Witt,

affectionately. “I have always felt as if you were a son of mine.”

“Then don’t talk to me about my goodness in taking you.”

“But it is good of you.”

“I don’t think Freddy and Frances think so.”

“Oh, Champney! Tell me, how did you find out their foolishness?”

“That is a secret,” chuckled Champney, “that goes with me to the grave.”

⁂

Nor was it any better for Cupid the next day at the steamer. The evil

genius of the little god, in the shape of Potter, persisted in following

Frances about, and not a moment did she or Freddy find to swear

constancy or anything else to each other. Only a hand squeeze, while the

whistle was blowing “all ashore,” did they get to feed their hearts upon

during the separation.

Freddy went home, and, going to his room, flung himself on his bed, and

moaned, and bit the pillow, and felt he was feeling great thoughts, and

thought he was having great feelings.

And the little lady?

“No,” she declared, “I don’t want to walk with you; I don’t want a

steamer chair; I don’t want anything; I only want to be left

al-o-o-o-o-ne,” and—running to her stateroom, she flung herself upon the

lounge and wept over her unhappiness. “Oh, Freddy, Freddy,” she sobbed,

“only be true to me, that’s all I ask.”

But, alas, how is humanity constituted! The next morning, Freddy, after

a final look at himself in a tall mirror, remarked to the vision: “Yes,

that’s very tony. Now, I’ll take a walk on the Avenue, so as to give the

girls a treat.” As for Frances, after an hour’s rapid walk with Champney

in the crisp, sunny air, she came down to the breakfast-table, and said:

“Yes, steward, I’ll begin with fruit and oatmeal, and then I’ll have

chocolate, and beefsteak, and an omelette, and fried potatoes, and hot

rolls, and marmalade. Oh! And, steward, do you have griddle cakes?”

Thus, despite their mutual intentions, the thought of each other

lessened daily, till even the inevitable correspondence lost interest

and flagged. Frances discovered that London, Paris, and the Riviera

offered greater attractions than Freddy’s witless and vapid “chronicle

of small beer;” while Freddy found that listening to the conversation of

a girl, present, was a far better way of spending time than reading the

letters of a girl, absent. Finally, Frances found a letter at the

bankers at Berne which ended the correspondence,—a letter over which she

laughed so heartily that Champney looked up from his own bundle of mail

and asked, “What is it that’s so funny?”

“Freddy’s engaged to Kitty Maxwell,” replied Frances.

“I don’t think you ought to be so gleeful at other people’s

misfortunes,” reproved Champney, laughing himself, however, while

speaking, as if he, too, saw something humorous in the announcement.

“I—I wasn’t—I was laughing at something else,” Frances told him.

“What?” asked Champney.

“A secret,” replied Frances, blushing a little, even while laughing.

“Not from me?” urged Champney.

“Yes; I sha’n’t even tell you. Not a person in the world will ever know

it, and I’m very glad,” asserted Frances.

“I suspect I know it already,” suggested Champney. “I am a great hand at

finding out secrets. I have a patent method.”

“What is that?” asked Frances.

“That, too, is a secret,” laughed Champney.

⁂

When next we meet any of our characters, they—or at least two of

them—are toiling up a steep mountain path in the Bavarian Tyrol. Frances

leads, for the way is narrow, and Champney follows. Conversation is at a

marked discount; but whether this is due to the natural incompatibility

of the two, or merely to the exertion of the climb, is unknown to

history.

“She gets lovelier every day,” finally remarked Champney.

Frances stopped, and turned. “What did you say?” she asked.

“I didn’t speak,” answered Champney.

“I’m sure you did,” said Frances.

“No,” denied Champney, “I was merely thinking.”

“You did say something, I’m sure,” responded Frances, turning, and

resuming the climb.

Another five minutes brought them to the top of a little plateau set in

between two ranges of mountains, and dividing two lakes, famous the

world over. Even after the couple reached their destination, however,

they stood silent for a minute. Then Frances exclaimed,—

“Isn’t it glorious?”

“Lovely,” assented Champney, emphatically, but staring all the time at

Frances, making it doubtful of what he was speaking.

Frances, being quite conscious of this gaze, looked all the harder at

the view. “The mountains shut in so grandly!” she remarked, after a

pause.

“Such perfect solitude!” said Champney, enthusiastically.

“Yes,” assented Frances, with apparent reluctance in admitting the fact.

“But I suppose we must be going down again; mama will be lonely.”

Champney calmly seated himself on a stone, unstrung his field-glass, and

surveyed through it the edge of the lake, far below them. “Your mother,”

he announced, “is sitting on the rug, just where we left her. Her back

is against the tree, and she is pretending to read. But she’s doing

nothing of the kind. She is taking a nap on the sly. Surely you don’t

want to disturb her?”

“It must be nearly luncheon time.”

“The boatmen haven’t even begun to unpack yet. Johann is just taking the

Vöslauer out of the boat, to cool it in the lake. They won’t be ready

for half an hour.”

Frances began to look a little worried. There was a dangerous

persistence in this evident desire to remain on the alp. “I think I’ll

go down, anyway,” she said.

“You mustn’t do that,” begged Champney, laying the field-glass on the

rock.

“Why not?” demanded Frances.

“Because I have something to say to you,” said Champney.

Silence and apparent interest in the view on the part of Frances.

“Do you know,” asked Champney, “that I planned to be away for only two

months?”

“Yes.”

“And that I have been over here more than eight?”

“Oh, not so long as that,” denied Frances.

“Eight months and four days.”

“How quickly the time has gone!”

“But it has gone, and that’s the trouble. I have decided that I _must_

go back in September.”

Frances hesitated, and then said bravely, “We shall be very sorry to

have you go.”

“That makes it all the harder,” groaned Champney, rising and joining

Frances. “In fact, I hate so to leave you” (“you” can be plural or

singular) “over here that—that I want you to go back with me. Will you?”

“Why, that is for mama and papa to settle,” remarked Frances, artfully

dodging the question, though perfectly understanding it.

“This isn’t to be settled by fathers and mothers. My dar—my—I want you

to go—because you have become so dear to me. I want to tell you—to tell

you how I have grown to love you in these months. How happy you can make

me by a single word. I—you—once you told me you were not ‘my dear

child.’ Oh, Frances, won’t you be my dearest love?”

“If you want me to be,” acceded Frances.

⁂

One of the simplest laws of natural philosophy is that a thing descends

more easily than it ascends. Yet it took those two over four times

longer to come down than it had taken them to go up,—which proves that

love is superior to all the laws of gravity; though it is not meant to

suggest by this that it has aught to do with levity. From among a

variety of topics with which they beguiled this slow descent the

following sentences are selected:

“I can’t believe it yet,” marvelled Champney. “It doesn’t seem as if our

happiness could have depended on such a small chance.”

“What chance?”

“Why—on that evening. When I found your mother wasn’t in, I half turned

away, but after hesitating, decided to wait. And then, when I found you

two in the morning room, I decided that I would leave you, and go and

read in the library. I was just about to say so, when you told me to sit

down by you on the sofa. That led to our coming off here together, and

really finding out about each other. Of course that was equivalent to my

falling desperately in love.”

“But you could have done that at home,” laughed Frances, merrily.

“No, I should have come off here, and some other man would have won

you.”

“Champney! I never could love any one but you.”

Champney swallowed the absurd statement rapturously. “That’s just like

the angel that you are,” he declared.

“But I knew you had something to do with our coming,” asserted Frances,

“though you did deny it.”

“No; like a consummate donkey, I didn’t want to be bothered with you.

Conceive of it, dear one, that I could ever think you a bother!”

“You didn’t know me,” laughed Frances happily, and with no intention of

vanity.

“No, I should think not. I wanted your father to take you. But I shall

never want any one else to do that in the future.”

“But why did you want me to go to Europe, if it wasn’t to be with me?”

“Why—um—because, dear one, I saw a little girl that night who was

longing so for love that she was accepting a cheap and flashy

counterfeit in its stead. I didn’t want her to waste a real heart on

such an apology for a man, and so I interfered.”

“But how did you know?” cried Frances, looking bewildered. “We had only

just—you couldn’t have known it then?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Champney laughed as he replied: “That’s telling.”

⁂

And now, another leap, please, back to that fireplace, and sofa, again

occupied by two—but not the same two—or, at least, only half the same.

“Well,” groaned Champney, “I suppose I ought to be going, for you must

look your prettiest to-morrow, otherwise malicious people will say it’s

a match arranged for the business.”

“Let them,” laughed Frances. “By the way, how have you arranged about

that? You are such a good business man, and papa and mama are so

delighted, that I know you have the best of it.”

“Of course I have. And she’s sitting beside me now. But nothing

mercenary to-night, Madam,” ordered Champney. “Cupid, not cupidity.”

“Well, Champney, dear, at least do tell me how you found out

about—about—” Frances stopped there.

“Never,” persisted Champney, nestling back on the sofa and laughing.

“I don’t think it’s nice for a man to have secrets from his wife,”

reproved Frances, taking an eminently feminine view of man’s knowledge.

“That is to be,” corrected Champney.

“Will you tell me—after to-morrow?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too good to be told.”

“Ah, Champney!” And a small hand strayed round his neck, and rested

lightly against his cheek. Champney looked very contented.

“Please, dear.” And a pair of lips came dangerously close to his own.

Champney groaned a satisfied groan. “Well,” he began, “do you remember

when I came in the evening before we sailed, how Freddy was sitting over

there, and you were sitting just where you are?”

“Yes.”

“And how you let me sit down here, just where I am?”

“Yes.”

“And how I chatted for a moment and then suddenly became silent?”

“Yes.”

“That was when I discovered it.”

“How?”

“I found that the seat I was sitting in was _warm_!”

“SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE IS SAUCE FOR THE GANDER”

❦

“Oh, my dear!” cried her mother.

“I hope you have properly considered? He is charming, of course,

but—well—he is such a club habitué.”

“What? Well, well!” exclaimed her father. “Bless me, Meg, I had no idea—

Give me a kiss, if you have any to spare for your old dad now. Why, of

course, I consent, if you care for him. Only tell Mr. Tyler I hear he

spends too much time at his clubs.”

“Margaret! How nice!” ejaculated her sister. “I’ve liked him from the

start, and hoped—people said he was too fond of his club ever to care to

marry, and so I thought—but now it’s all right.”

“I knew he meant biz,” asserted her brother, “the moment he began to

keep away from the club, and put in so much time with you.”

“I cannot tell you, my dearest Margaret (if I may call you that?),”

wrote his mother, “how happy I am over what my dear boy has just told

me. The luxury and ease of club life are now so great that I had almost

feared Harry could not be weaned from them. But since he has chosen such

a dear, beautiful, and clever girl, my worst anxiety is over.”

“You are indeed to be congratulated, niece,” declared her aunt. “He is a

most eligible _parti_—good looks, position, and wealth. If you can only

keep him away from his clubs, I am confident you will be a very happy

and domestic couple.”

“I have been certain of it for weeks,” her dearest feminine friend

assured her. “There isn’t a man I would rather have had you take, for he

is so much at his club that I shall still see something of you.”

“Er, Miss Brewster,” said one of her rejected lovers, “let me offer you

my best wishes. At the club we all swear by Harry, and we actually think

of going into mourning over the loss. Er, the fellows are laying bets as

to whether we shall ever see him there again. The odds are six to one on

the club,—but the fellows don’t know you, you know.”

“I want to offer you my heartiest congratulations,” gushed the girl who

had tried for him. “Mr. Tyler has always been one of my best friends,

and I am sure you will be very happy. He isn’t, of course, very fond of

women’s society, but— Have you asked him to resign from his clubs?”

⁂

“Don’t you want to sit down, Harry?” asked Margaret, making room on the

little sofa beside the fire.

The young couple had enjoyed four months of ecstatic travel, thirty days

of chaos while they settled their household goods, and then a recurring

Indian-summer honeymoon of two months in front of their own fireside in

the charmingly cosey library where the above remark was made. Upon this

particular evening, however, Harry, in following his wife from the

dining-room, took neither his customary seat beside his wife on the sofa

nor lighted a cigar. On the contrary, he stood leaning against the

mantel with anything but an expression or attitude of ease, and, noting

this, Margaret had asked her question.

“Not to-night, dear,” said Harry. “The truth is—well—I met Parmlee on my

way up town, and I—that is—he asked me to come round to the club this

evening—and, well—I didn’t like to disappoint him. And then, a fellow

mustn’t stag—that is—don’t you think, my darling, that it’s a mistake

for married people to see too much of each other—and—”

“Oh, Harry!” cried Margaret, interrupting and rising. “You said you

never could have enough—”

“And I can’t, dearest,” interrupted Harry, hurriedly. “But you know—

Well—can’t you—”

“I feel as if it were the beginning of the end,” said Margaret, wildly.

“Now, my darling,” pleaded Harry, “do be reasonable. You know— There,

don’t cry. I won’t go. Sit down here and let me tell you how much I love

you.”

This occupied some time, but the clock never told on them, so it is

impossible to say just how long. Presently Margaret said:

“Harry, did you really want to—to leave me?”

“Not a bit,” lied Harry. “It was only to keep my word to Parmlee.”

“I suppose it’s too late now?” questioned Margaret, hopefully.

“Late? Oh, no! Fun’s just beginning. But I’m going to stay with you,

sweetheart.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Margaret said: “If you want to

go, I want you to do it, Harry.”

“Well,” responded Harry, rising, “if you insist, dearest.”

“I do,” assented Margaret, in the most faint-hearted of voices.

“That’s a darling!” said her husband. “It’s half-past nine, so you’ll

only have a few minutes of loneliness before you go to bed.”

“I sha’n’t go to bed, Harry,” sighed Margaret, dolefully.

“Why, my darling,” protested Harry, a little irritably, “you don’t want

to make me miserable thinking of you as here by yourself. Please be

reasonable and don’t sit up for me. Leave me free to come home when I

want.”

“Very well, Harry,” acceded Margaret, dutifully, “if you insist I won’t

wait for your return.”

Harry took the charming face in his hands, and kissed each eyelid, and

then the lips. “I don’t deserve such an angel,” he asserted, his

conscience pricking him, “and— Oh, hang Parmlee!” he growled, as her

eyes, a little misty, looked up into his own. However, she belonged to

him, and there were plenty of evenings, and—well— “Good-night, my

treasure,” he ended.

⁂

Margaret remained standing where Harry had left her until she heard the

front door close; then she collapsed on the sofa and softly sobbed her

sense of desertion and grief into the pillow. The warnings of her family

and friends recurred to her, and added to the pain of the moment a

direful dread of the future. Not knowing that most bachelors are regular

club men merely because it is the nearest approach to home life they can

attain, she dwelt on his having been apparently wedded to these

comforters of men, before marriage, and inferred a return to his former

daily frequenting of them.

Her grief was keen enough to prevent her from noticing that the front

door was presently opened, and not till she heard a faint cough in the

room did she raise her head from the pillow. It was to find a servant

with his back turned to the sofa, occupied, apparently, in setting a

chair in a position entirely unsuited to it,—a proceeding he made far

more noisy than became a well-trained butler, and which he accompanied

with two more coughs.

Hurriedly wiping her eyes, Margaret asked, “What is it, Craig?”

With his eyes carefully focussed to see everything but his mistress’s

face, the man came forward and held out his tray.

Almost mechanically she took the card upon it, and after a mere glance

she directed,—“Say that Mrs. Tyler is not receiving this evening, and

begs to be excused.”

Left alone once more, the young wife sat down upon a stool near the

fire, and looked into the blaze, idly twirling the card. “I wonder,” she

soliloquised presently, “if he would have done the same.” Again she

lapsed into meditation, for a few minutes; then suddenly she sat up

straight, with an air of sudden interest which was clearly derived from

her own thoughts. A moment later, she gave a short, hesitating laugh.

“If I only dared! I wonder if he would? Men are—” she said

disconnectedly; but even as she spoke, her face softened. “Poor dear!”

she murmured tenderly. Yet the words of pity melted into another laugh,

and this time merriment and not guilt was as the dominant note.

Springing to her feet with vivacity, she sped into the hall, and placed

the card on the tray, and that in turn conspicuously on the hatrack. A

second action consisted in turning on all the electric lights of the

chandelier. This done, she touched the bell.

“You may close the house, Craig,” she ordered, when the servant

responded to the summons, “but as Mr. Tyler has gone to his club, I wish

you to leave these lights just as they are. I prefer that he should not

come home to a darkened house, so don’t turn out one.” Giving one last

glance, half merry and half guilty, at the bit of pasteboard put in so

prominent a position, Margaret lightly tripped upstairs, humming

something to herself.

⁂

Meantime Harry had wended his way to the club.

“Hello, Tyler!” said the man his wife had refused. “Don’t mean to say

you’ve actually ceased to be one of the ‘submerged tenth?’ How and where

is your superior moiety?”

“When I left Mrs. Tyler before her fire, ten minutes ago, she was very

well.”

“By George, if I had as clever and pretty a wife I don’t think I should

dare to leave her alone. I should be afraid of the other men.”

Harry turned away to hide his frown, but as he went towards the door of

the billiard room, rejoined: “Perhaps it wouldn’t be safe with _your_

wife.” To himself he carolled gleefully: “That cuts both ways.”

“But you are not afraid, I understand,” called the man, irritatingly,

“so I take it you won’t mind if I drop round there for a few moments

this evening, eh?”

“Certainly not,” responded Harry, suavely, but gritting his teeth. “Hang

the fellow,” he muttered. “How do such cads ever get into decent clubs?

As if Margaret’s refusing him twice wasn’t enough to make him understand

that she doesn’t want him round!”

Tyler’s anger was quickly forgotten in the warm reception his cronies

gave him, and a tumbler of “unsweetened” and a cue quickly made him

forget both the incident and the passing hours. Not till the marker

notified the players that the time limit had come did he wake to the

fact that it was two o’clock.

With a sense of guilt the husband hurried home. In the hallway, as he

took off hat and coat, he noticed the card, and picked it up. “So he did

come,” he growled, with a frown. “I hope Meg had gone to bed before he

got here. Not, of course, that it really matters,” he went on. “She told

me she never could endure him, so he’s welcome to call as often as he

likes to be snubbed.” To prove how little he cared, the husband crushed

the card viciously, and tossed it on the floor.

The light in Margaret’s room was burning low, Harry noticed when he had

ascended the stairs, and, peeping in, he saw that she was sleeping

peacefully. Entering quietly, he looked at her for a moment, thinking

with a little pang that he had given her pain. “You don’t deserve such

an angel,” he said aloud. “See how she has done just what you asked her

to do, with never a word of— There isn’t another woman who would have

taken it so sweetly. You’re an ass! And for what? Four hours of—of

nothing, when I might have been with her.” He leaned down to very softly

kiss a stray curl, and went towards his own room, while saying: “How

pretty and dainty she is! She’s worth all the clubs in the world!” What

was more, for a minute he believed it.

The moment Harry was gone Margaret opened her eyes very wide, rose

softly, and looked at the clock. Then she went back to bed, smiling

demurely.

⁂

The next morning, when Harry entered the breakfast room a little late,

he was received with a kiss, and no word of reproach. Margaret chatted

over the meal in her usual entertaining, happy mood, telling him the

news she had already extracted from the morning’s paper.

“She’s too clever ever to nag a man,” thought Harry, and assured that he

was not to be taken to task, he became equally amiable, and told her

whom he had seen at the club, and of his score.

“I’m glad you had such a pleasant evening!” said Margaret, sweetly. “I

hope you didn’t stay so late as to tire yourself.”

“I didn’t notice the time,” fibbed Harry, “but probably I was in by

twelve.”

“Oh, no, dear,” said Margaret, pleasantly, “for I didn’t get home till

after one myself, and you weren’t back then.”

⁂

Twenty times Harry has tried to persuade his wife into acknowledging

that she spoke in jest, but Margaret only looks at him with wideopen,

questioning eyes, as innocent as a child’s. Her husband firmly believes

that she went to bed ten minutes after he left the house, and always

ends his unsuccessful attempts to get her to confess the fact by taking

Margaret in his arms and telling her of his belief. This faith his wife

rewards with a tender kiss, but only a kiss, and still maintains her

demure silence.

Harry spends no more evenings at the club, and every woman who knows him

holds him up to other men as an ideal married Benedick.

THE CORTELYOU FEUD

❦

It could never have happened to us anywhere in New York but at Mrs.

Baxter’s. I say this not with bitterness at, but in calm recognition of,

the merits and demerits of that universally esteemed lady. Abroad, with

the lords chamberlain, herald’s offices, and peerages, it would be

impossible. In the far West, where the biography and genealogy of the

leading families are not subjects for polite conversation, it might

occur frequently. But in New York, lying between these two extremes, one

is safe, except from accidents due to the unfortunate existence of a

peculiar class of people.

The kind I refer to are those described as having a good heart. Such an

organ involves, as a natural corollary, a weak head. These qualities in

combination are a terrible menace to society; for, owing to the very

goodness of heart, their possessors are pardoned over and over again,

and repeat their ill deeds with as much immunity from punishment as a

New York police captain. Every social circle has one or more of these

half-criminals, and in that in which my lot was cast Mrs. Baxter was

unequalled for the number, ingenuity, and innocence of her mistakes.

Omitting all hearsay and they-say knowledge, I was her forty-seventh

victim; and as pœnologists affirm that more than half of the criminal

acts are undiscovered, it can at once be seen how society is menaced by

people with good hearts.

The lady who always tells me when I do wrong—and to married men I need

not be more descriptive—has held me responsible for that evening; and,

since she married me, her husband is not the one to impeach her

discrimination. She insists that, knowing Mrs. Baxter, I should have

come early, and so had time to arrange matters quietly. I appeal to any

man if it would ever occur to him to get to a dinner early on the

possibility he was to sit next a lighted shell, in order that he might

express to his hostess his dislike of explosives. All New York has known

for years of our family feud. It’s been common property ever since our

esteemed ancestors thrashed it out in court, to the enjoyment of the

public and the disruption of our family. For thirty years dinners,

luncheons, yacht cruises, and house parties have been arranged so as to

keep a proper distance between the descendants of my grandfather John

Cortelyou and of his nephew Dabney. Sometimes I have seen one of the

latter at the opposite end of a large dinner-table, and here and there I

have had other glimpses of them. But until that evening, no matter how

close chance brought us together, we had always succeeded in maintaining

a dignified unconsciousness of each other’s existence.

I was, let it be confessed, thirty minutes late, and merely accepting

the last little envelope on the tray the footman offered me, hurried

towards the drawing-room. On my way I naturally looked at the card

inside and read:

_Mr. Pellew.

Miss Cortelyou._

That meant nothing to me. The name is not an uncommon one, and I have

taken in my aunts often enough to get accustomed to the occurrence, even

in the family. So, without a second thought of the matter, I passed

through the doorway and discharged my devoirs with Mrs. Baxter.

“I was on the point of suicide, thinking you had failed me,” she said.

“As it is, Mr. and Mrs. Dana have just sent me word that they can’t come

because Milly has croup.”

“My note said half after seven,” I stated boldly. When one is very late

it is always best to put one’s hostess in the wrong, and a mistake more

or less to Mrs. Baxter was immaterial.

“Oh, never!” she declared, so guiltily that I was really sorry for her.

“Well, we can’t discuss it now. We were just going in without you, and

we’ll go on, leaving you to find your partner by the process of

elimination. I haven’t left you Hobson’s choice, however.”

I glanced round, and as the couples had gravitated together, I easily

picked out the only single figure left, and went towards it. She was

turned from me, standing by Ferdie Gallaudet and his partner, who had

not yet moved.

“That back is too young and pretty for Aunt Ellen or Madge,” was my

first thought. My second was a spoken one, and merely consisted of the

trite, “I am to have the pleasure, Miss Cortelyou.”

She was saying something to the girl, and went on saying it, with her

head over her shoulder, even as she rested her hand on my arm and let me

lead her away. And just as I was going to look at her, I caught sight of

Ferdie’s face, and fell to wondering what could ail him that he looked

so queer. We had been close to the door, and before she had finished her

remark, or I had ceased from wondering, we were through it and in the

half-gloom of the hall.

“I beg your pardon,” said she, turning to me, and speaking very sweetly.

“It was a message, and I had only just begun when you came.”

“What a nuisance messages are!” was my remark. “What a nice voice you

have!” was my thought. Then we entered the dining-room, and I glanced at

my partner. It was Kate Cortelyou!

She looked at me at the same moment, and as our eyes met, an expression

of consternation appeared on both our faces. At least, that’s what I

felt in myself and saw in her. Horror succeeded as a next sensation and

expression. Womanlike, she cast her eyes appealingly towards her

hostess, and, manlike, I took a step towards the hall door. In another

second I think I should have bolted, but just then Ferdie Gallaudet

said, “Here’s your seat, Jack,” with a grin like a Cheshire cat on his

face. I looked at Kate and she looked at me. Then we both looked at the

chairs. Mechanically I stepped to them and pulled out that on the right

of mine. Kate’s eyelashes fluttered for a moment, as if she were

hesitating; then she slipped into the seat, and the next moment I was

sitting beside her. But enchantingly pretty as I thought her (and I was

either too fair-minded or she was too beautiful for me not to

acknowledge it, however much I might dislike to do so), I could only

wish I had broken my leg on my way to the house.

I turned to my left to see if any escape were possible, but my neighbour

on that side was that horrible perpetual motion of a Mrs. Marvin, and,

besides, she was very properly occupied with her partner. I peered

furtively behind Kate to see if she could escape me, for anything was

better than the alternative. Next her were two empty seats. Mrs.

Baxter’s capacity for social blundering had done its worst.

There is this to be said for the Cortelyou women, whether friends or

enemies: I’ve never seen one show the white feather in action. Just as I

was preparing to collapse under this accumulation of horrors, Kate

turned to me, with the friendliest of smiles, and murmured,—

“It’s ghastly, but every one except Mrs. Baxter is watching us.”

I took a furtive glimpse of the other guests. They were all pretending

to talk, but all clearly were missing nothing of our _tableau vivant_.

Wasn’t she clever to have seen it so quickly?

“They hope we’ll make a show of the family for their benefit,” I

growled.

“Can’t we—” suggested Kate, and then hesitated, and blushed very

prettily. The Cortelyou women are plucky, but Kate was only nineteen.

I never was good as leader, but at the shafts I’m steady and reliable.

“Of course we can,” I responded, won by that blush.

“Don’t frown, then,” smiled Kate.

“I was not frowning at you,” I protested.

“But they’ll think you are,” she replied.

I tried to appear as pleased as Kate so successfully pretended to be,

and she rewarded me with an encouraging “That’s better,” and a very

refreshing look at her eyes.

“Now,” she continued, “how can we do it?”

“I’m pretty well up on the litany,” I whispered. “If you can do the

supplications I can respond with the ‘miserable sinner’ part.”

Kate laughed merrily, even while shaking her head reprovingly. Kate has

nice teeth. “You are painfully frank,” she told me.

“Frank?”

“Yes. You are probably not a bit more miserable than I am, but I don’t

groan aloud.”

“Oh, I say!” I exclaimed, rather horrified at the construction my speech

had been given. “It would be pure form, you know, quite as it is in

church, and not mean a bit more than it does when the sinner’s pretty

and wears a French gown.”

Kate drew her mouth down into a church-going expression, which was very

fetching in its demureness, but which wasn’t suitable for our public

performance, so I remarked:

“Don’t look so disapproving. The saintly vein suits the Madonna type,

but the Cortelyou forte lies in quite another direction.”

I won another laugh from those unsaintly lips. “You are worse than I

thought,” she added.

“Then you have thought of me?” I inquired, beginning to mellow under her

laugh. That was a mistake, for her face instantly became serious, and

her eyes gave a flash.

“What I think is my own concern,” she responded. The Cortelyou women are

stunning when they look haughty.

Being one of the family, however, I am too accustomed to the look to be

as entirely crushed by it as others are. “Who’s frowning now?” I asked.

I thought I’d learn what kind of a temper Kate had.

She still smiled as if she liked being put next me, but her eyes

gleamed, and I knew she’d pay me for my speech if the opportunity

occurred.

“We can’t begin like this,” she said. “Suggest something else.”

“I once heard of a poor couple in an English county who were always

sitting next each other, so they agreed to count alternative tens up to

a thousand,” I answered.

“I’m afraid you haven’t enough facial control for that,” replied Kate,

sweetly, appearing the picture of contentment. I thought her remark

unnecessary, considering we had been face to face only a few minutes,

and that she had just lost control of hers.

“Then suggest something yourself,” I muttered.

“As the photographer says, ‘A little more smile, please,’” corrected

Kate. “Yes, you unquestionably have the Cortelyou temper,” she added

serenely.

“If I had,” I asserted, “I should long since have turned to Mrs. Marvin,

who is dying for a listener.” I thought I’d let Kate understand _I_

wasn’t sitting next two empty chairs.

She realised my advantage, but she wouldn’t retreat. The Cortelyou women

never do. Yet she knew enough to allow the honours of war to a

hard-driven enemy. “The Cortelyou men are gentlemen,” she said. Wasn’t

that a neat way of telling me that I would never fail a woman in

distress? I felt pleased that she understood the family so well as to

have no fear for the conduct of even her bitterest enemy. “Besides,” she

continued, “I like the Cortelyou temper.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Yes,” she persisted, “it’s an absolutely reliable factor. Now, papa—”

Then she hesitated, realising the slip.

With an older girl I should have let her flounder, and enjoyed it; but

she was so young, and blushed so charmingly that I had to help her out.

“Don’t keep me in suspense about your father,” I said, in my most

interested of tones, as if I truly wished to know something of that blot

on the ‘scutcheon. This was my second mistake, and a bad one.

“We’ll leave Mr. Dabney Cortelyou out of the conversation, please,” she

retorted, looking me in the eyes. Was there ever a meaner return for an

act of pure charity than that?

By the way, Kate’s eyes are not Cortelyou. I wondered from where she got

them. When we are angry we contract ours, which is ugly. She opens hers,

which is—I tried to make her do it again by saying, “You should set a

better example, then.” No good: she had got back to her form, and was

smiling sweetly.

“They are furiously disappointed so far,” she remarked.

“What an old curiosity shop the world is about other people’s affairs!

It’s no concern of theirs that my grandfather and your”—I faltered, and

went on—“that my grandfather had a row in his family. We don’t talk of

it.” When I said “we” I meant the present company, but unfortunately

Kate took it to mean our faction, and knowing of her father’s idle

blabbing, she didn’t like it.

“Your side has always dodged publicity,” she affirmed viciously, though

smiling winsomely. Kate’s smile must be her strong card.

“We have maintained a dignified silence,” I responded calmly; but I knew

that a dagger thrust below that beautifully modelled throat would be

less cruel.

She tried to carry the wound bravely. “My father is quite justified in

letting the truth be known,” she insisted.

“Then why don’t you, too, give public house-warmings in the

family-skeleton closet?” I inquired blandly. That was really a triumph,

for Kate had never talked to outsiders about the wretched business. She

couldn’t even respond with what she thought; for if she said that it was

always the side in the wrong which talked, she was no better off,

because we, like her, had kept silence, but her father had chattered it

all over town. She looked down, and I gloated over her silence, till

suddenly I thought I saw a suggestion of moisture on her down-turned

lashes. What I said to myself was not flattering, and moreover is not

fit for publication. What I said aloud I still glow over with pride when

it recurs to memory.

“Beware of the croquette!” I exclaimed hastily. “I’ve just burned my

tongue horribly.” And I reached for the ice-water.

She was as quick as I had been. The Cortelyou girls are quick, but

she—well, I think the ancestress who gave her those eyes must have been

a little quicker.

“You spoke a moment too late,” she replied, looking up at me. “I had

just done the same, and feel like weeping.” I wonder what the recording

angel wrote against those two speeches?

Then suddenly Kate began to laugh.

“What is it?” I queried.

“Taste your croquette,” she suggested.

It was as cool as it should have been hot!

We both laughed so heartily that Mr. Baxter called, “Come; don’t keep

such a good story to yourselves.”

“Pretend you are so engrossed that you didn’t hear,” advised Kate,

simulating the utmost interest. “Aren’t we doing well?”

“Thanks to you,” was my gallant reply.

“Thanks to the Cortelyous,” she declared.

“They might have known,” said I, “that we’d never have a public circus

to please them.”

“Isn’t it nice,” she responded, “since we had to have a fracas, that it

should be between ladies and gentlemen?”

“Isn’t it?” I acceded. “Just supposing there had been some cad

concerned, who would have written to the papers and talked to

reporters!”

“That was impossible, because we are all Cortelyous,” explained Kate. I

like a girl who stands up for her stock.

“Yes,” I assented. “And that’s the one advantage of family rows.”

“I want to tell you,” she went on, “that you do my father a great

injustice. Some natures are silent in grief or pain, and some must cry

out. Because he talks, merely means that he suffers.”

I longed to quote her remark about leaving her father out of the

conversation, but having told her there were no cads in the family, the

quotation was unavailable. So I merely observed, “Not knowing Mr. Dabney

Cortelyou, I have had no chance to do him justice.”

“But what you hear—” she began, with the proudest of looks; and it

really hurt me to have to interrupt her by saying,—

“Since I only get word of him from his dearest friends I am forced to

take a somewhat jaundiced view of him.”

“I suppose you are surrounded by toadies who pretend to know him,” she

said contemptuously.

I was not to be made angry. I was enjoying the dinner too much. “It

would be a very terrible thing for our mutual friends,” I continued, “if

the breach were ever healed, and we exchanged notes as to their

tattling.”

“Fortunately they are in no danger,” she answered, more

cheerfully—indeed I might say, more gleefully—than it seemed to me the

occasion required.

“Fortunately,” I agreed, out of self-respect. Then I weakened a little

by adding, “But what a pity it is you and I didn’t have the settling of

that farm-line!”

“My father could not have acted otherwise,” she challenged back.

“And the courts decided that my grandfather was right.”

“I should have done just as he did,” she replied.

“Then you acknowledge my grandfather was right?”

“I!”—indignantly.

“You just assured me you should have done as he did!” I teased,

laughing. “No. Of course both of them were justified in everything but

in their making a legal matter a family quarrel. If we had had it to do,

it would have been done amicably, I think.”

“What makes you so sure?” she asked.

“Because I am sweet-tempered, and you—”

She wouldn’t accept a compliment from an enemy, so interrupted me with,

“My father has one of the finest natures I have ever known.”

“‘Physician, know thyself,’” I quoted, getting in the compliment in

spite of her.

“That’s more than you do,” she replied merrily.

This could be taken in two ways, but I preferred to make it applicable

to her rather than to myself. I said, “Our acquaintance has been short.”

“But we know all about the stock,” she corrected.

“I’m proud of the family,” I acknowledged; “but don’t let’s be

Ibsenish.”

“I knew you didn’t like him,” said Kate, confidentially. “I don’t

either.”

“He’s rather rough on us old families,” I intimated.

“Sour grapes,” explained Kate. “The wouldn’t-because-I-can’t-be people

always stir up the sediments of my Cortelyou temper.”

“I thought you liked the family temper,” I suggested.

“In anybody but myself,” she told me. “With others it’s really a great

help. Now, with my brothers, I know just how far I can go safely, and

it’s easy to manage them.”

“I suppose that accounts for the ease with which you manage me.”

She laughed, and replied demurely, “I think we are both on our good

behaviour.”

“I’m afraid our respective and respected parents won’t think so.”

This made her look serious, and I wondered if her father could be brute

enough ever to lose that awful temper of his at such a charming

daughter. The thought almost made me lose mine. “They can’t blame you,”

I assured her. “Your father—”

“Is sure that everything I do is right,” she interjected, “but Mrs.

Pellew?”

“We will not make Mrs. Pellew—”

Kate saw I was going to use her own speech, and she interrupted in turn.

“Of course you are over twenty-one,” she continued, “but the Cortelyou

women always have their way. I hope she won’t be very bad to you.”

She certainly had paid me off, and to boot, for my earlier speech. And

the nasty thing about it was that any attempt to answer her would look

as if I felt there was truth in her speech, which was really ridiculous.

Though I live with my mother, my friends know who is the real master of

the house.

“Any one living with a Cortelyou woman must confess her superiority,” I

responded, bowing deferentially.

“Yes,” she said, nodding her head knowingly. “People say that she spoils

you. Now I see how you compass it.”

“We have only exchanged Ibsen for Mrs. Grundy,” I complained.

“‘Excelsior’ is a good rule,” announced Kate.

“That’s what you’ll be doing in a moment,” said I, trying to look

doleful, for we were eating the game course.

“How well you act it!” replied Kate. “You ought to go on the stage. What

a pity that you should waste your time on clubs and afternoon teas!”

“Look here,” I protested, “I’ve done my best all through dinner,

considering my Cortelyou temper, and now, just because it’s so nearly

over that you don’t need me any longer is no reason for making such

speeches. I don’t go to my club once a week, and I despise afternoon

teas.”

“That sampler has become positively threadbare,” retorted Kate. “I

really think it must be worked in worsted, and hung up in all the New

York clubs, like ‘God bless our home!’ and ‘Merry Christmas!’”

“I much prefer hearts to clubs, for a steady trump,” I remarked.

“You play billiards, I presume?”

“Yes,” I innocently replied.

“What’s your average run?”

It was a tempting bait she shoved under my nose, but I realised the

trap; and was too wary to be caught. “Oh, four, when I’m in good form.”

“Really?”

“Really.” I did not choose to add that I was talking of the balk-line

game, not caring to be too technical with a woman.

“That’s very curious!” she exclaimed.

“I suppose some devoted friend of mine has told you I’m only a

billiard-marker?” I inquired.

“No—but—”

“But?”

“Nothing.”

“George Washington became President by always telling the truth.”

“That’s the advantage of being a woman,” replied Kate. “We don’t have to

scheme and plot and crawl for the Presidency.”

“How about spring bonnets?” I mildly insinuated.

“Does your mother have a very bad time persuading you to pay for hers?”

laughed Kate, mischievously.

I didn’t like the question, though I knew she was only teasing, so I

recurred to my question. “You haven’t told me what that ‘nothing’ was,”

I persisted.

“I oughtn’t,” urged Kate.

“Then I know you will,” I said confidently.

“Well, Seymour Halsey said to Weedon the other night, ‘I wish you could

play with Jack Pellew, so as to knock some of his airs out of him!’”

“Why,” I ejaculated, “I could play cushion caroms against your brother’s

straight game and beat him then!”

“I never did believe that story about George Washington,” asserted Kate,

with a singular want of relevance.

“No woman could,” I answered, squaring accounts promptly.

Here I saw the little preliminary flutter among the ladies, and knowing

that I should never speak to Kate again, I said:

“Miss Cortelyou, I’m afraid an unkind remark of mine a little while ago

gave you pain. You’ve probably forgotten it already, but I never shall

cease to regret I made it.”

“Don’t think of it again,” she replied, kindly, as she rose. “And thank

you for a pleasant evening.”

“Don’t blame me for that,” I pleaded hastily. “It was your own fault.”

“Not entirely,” denied Kate. “We did it so well that I’m prouder than

ever of the family.”

“I decline to share this honour with my grandfather,” I protested

indignantly. “He couldn’t keep his temper, bother him!”

We were at the door now, and Kate gave me the prettiest of parting nods

and smiles.

“Wasn’t it a pity?” she sighed. That was distinctly nice of her. Just

like a Cortelyou woman.

“Whew! Jack,” whistled Ferdie Gallaudet. “I thought I should die, and

expected to sit on your body at the postmortem.” Ferdie thinks he’s

clever!

“Oh, shut up, Ferdie,” I growled, dropping back into my seat.

“Don’t wonder your temper’s queered,” persisted the little ass.

“‘Wotinell’ did you talk about?”

“Family matters,” I muttered.

“Oh, I say, that’s a bit shiny at the joints. It was too well done to

have verged on that subject.”

“We talked family matters, and enjoyed it,” I insisted.

“Ever hear of George Washington?” inquired Ferdie.

“Kate mentioned him to me to-night, and I promised to put him up at the

Knickerbocker for a month.”

“Kate!” exclaimed Ferdie.

I lighted my cigar.

“Kate!” he repeated, with a rising inflection. “Now look here, I wasn’t

born yesterday.”

“Where’s your family Bible?” I inquired blandly.

“You’ll be saying next that to-night’s arrangement was by ‘special

request.’”

“You were across the table,” I retorted. “Draw your own conclusions.”

“I suppose you’ll join her later,” suggested Ferdie, in an irritating

manner.

I wouldn’t be bluffed by him, so I replied pointedly, “I may, to save

her from worse.”

“Give you odds on it,” offered Ferdie.

“I don’t make bets where women are concerned,” I crushingly responded.

“Sorry the strain has left you so bad-tempered,” said Ferdie, rising.

“There’s Caldwell beckoning to me. Ta, ta!”

I have liked Caldwell ever since.

When we joined the ladies I went over to Kate.

“This is persecution,” she smilingly protested, as she made room for me

on the sofa.

“I know it,” I cheerfully groaned, as I sat down beside her. “But I had

to for the sake of the family.”

“A family is a terrible thing to live up to!” sighed Kate.

“Terrible!” I ejaculated.

“Fortunately it will only be for a moment,” she assured me.

“If you go at once,” I urged, “they’ll all think it’s the feud.”

“What a nuisance!” cried Kate. “I ought to be on my way to a musical

this very minute.”

“On the principle that music hath charms?” I queried.

“Good-night!” she said, holding out her hand. I had already noticed what

pretty hands Kate had.

“Forgive me!” I begged.

“Never!” she replied.

“You are serious?” I questioned, and she understood what I meant as if I

had said it. I do like people who can read between the lines!

She amended her “never” to, “Well, not till I have had my chance to even

the score.”

“Take it now.”

“I haven’t time.”

“I will submit to anything.”

“My revenge must be deep.”

“I will do the thing I most hate.”

“Even afternoon teas?” laughed Kate, archly.

I faltered in voice while promising, “Even afternoon teas!”

“Then I’ll send you a card for mine,” she ended, and left me, crushed

and hopeless.

⁂

No. That didn’t end the feud. It only led to a truce. For a time things

went very well, but then the quarrel broke out with renewed force. You

see, Kate claimed I spoiled the boy, and I claimed she did the spoiling.

So we submitted it to arbitration. My mother said Kate was very

judicious, and her father declared I was a model parent. Then we called

in his godmother, and she decided we all four spoiled him. It’s been

open war ever since, with an occasional brief cessation of hostilities

whenever Kate kisses me. After the boy’s grown up, I suppose, peace will

come again.

His godmother? Oh! Mrs. Baxter. You see, we couldn’t do less, for she

had talked it all over town that the match was of her making. Her

making! In ten cases out of nine she would have had a disrupted dinner.

It’s lucky for her that Kate was a Cortelyou woman!

“THE BEST LAID PLANS”

AS ENACTED

IN

_Two Social Cups of Tea,

Two Social Jokes, and

One Social Agony._

SCENE

_Parlour in country house of Mrs. Wycherly._

CHARACTERS

MRS. WYCHERLY,

MISS HELEN WYCHERLY,

MISS ROSE NEWCOME,

MISS AMY SHERMAN,

LORD FERROL,

GEORGE HAROLD,

STEVEN HAROLD,

DENNIS GRANT.

SYLLABUS

ACT I

_A cup of tea and two social jokes._

5.30 P. M. Friday.