It either was Tom Keene, Henry George or some other good nickel seller
that once said, "Women thou art fickle things," and to come right down
to it the old boy was about right. Even in this war we have found that
the fair sex is not overcoming this weakness, in fact woman today is
worse than she was yesterday.
In the days of old the men would do daring acts to win the hand of fair
lady. If he went on a crusade and brought back a string of dragon heads
she would marry him. They would live happily till some other daredevil
comes along with long wavy hair and two strings of dragon heads. Right
away friend wife drops a Sedlitz powder in his "vin-rouge." A few days
finds hubby pushing up daisies and the handsome stranger is seen playing
a guitar under the widow's window, she encouraging him by dropping
roses.
Now today he pops the question, she says, "But we won't have the knot
tied till you come back from the war." While he was putting the half
karat on that special finger he began to figure how long it would take
him to kill off the population of Germany at the rate of five thousand a
day and get back to the ideal of his dreams. He goes across the pond and
receives his sweet weekly letter till one day he gets one that makes him
think that he is opening some other fellow's mail.
She had not waited to see how many "Dutch" helmets and medals he would
bring home but had gone before the altar with some guy who couldn't
enlist on account of a thick head.
It's a wonder we ever won the war with such moral support as this coming
through the mail. In this company alone, which has a strength of only
one hundred and twenty-three men, eleven per cent were jilted in this
way. All of them will probably not die old bachelors, but it will take
some pretty strong bait to get these fish to nibble again.