"Hello! Is that you, Jack?" chirped the Curzon girl.
"Yes. Who is that?"
"Edith," came back. "I have your letter, but I can't make out what it's
all about. Come this afternoon and tell me, for we're still good
friends, aren't we, Jack?"
"Yes--certainly," stammered Jack.
"And you'll come?"
"Yes," he answered, and cut her off.
He had hardly recovered from this shock when a messenger boy came with a
note, addressed in a woman's writing.
"Now for it," he said, and breaking the seal read:
"'_Jack dear:_ Your horrid note doesn't say anything, nor explain
anything. Come this afternoon and tell what it means to
MABEL.'"
"Here's a go," exclaimed Jack, but he looked pleased in a sort of
sneaking way. "What do you think of it, Mr. Graham?"
"I don't like it."
"Think they intend to cut up?" he asked.
"Like a sausage machine; and yet I don't see how they can stand for you
after that letter."
"Well, shall I go?"
"Yes, in fact I suppose you must go; but Jack, be a man. Tell 'em plain
and straight that you don't love 'em as you should to marry 'em; say
you saw your old girl a few days ago and found you loved her still, or
something from the same trough, and stick to it. Take what you deserve.
If they hold you up to the bull-ring, the only thing you can do is to
propose to take the whole bunch to Utah, and let 'em share and share
alike. That'll settle it. Be firm."
"As a rock, sir."
I made Jack come downtown and lunch with me, but when I started him off,
about two o'clock, he looked so like a cat padding up the back-stairs to
where she knows there's a little canary meat--scared, but happy--that I
said once more: "Now be firm, Jack."
"Firm's the word, sir," was the resolute answer.
"And unyielding."
"As the old guard." And Jack puffed himself out till he was as chesty as
a pigeon on a barn roof, and swung off down the street looking mighty
fine and manly from the rear.
I never really got the straight of it, but I pieced together these
particulars later. At the corner there was a flower store. Jack stepped
inside and sent a box of roses by special messenger to Miss Curzon, so
there might be something to start conversation when he got there. Two
blocks farther on he passed a second florist's, turned back and sent
some lilies to Miss Moore, for fear she might think he'd forgotten her
during the hour or more before he could work around to her house. Then
he chased about and found a third florist, from whom he ordered some
violets for Miss Churchill, to remind her that she had promised him the
first dance at the Blairs' that night. Your Ma told me that Jack had
nice instincts about these little things which women like, and always
put a good deal of heavy thought into selecting his flowers for them.
It's been my experience that a critter who has instincts instead of
sense belongs in the bushes with the dicky-birds.
No one ever knew just what happened to Jack during the next three hours.
He showed up at his club about five o'clock with a mighty conceited set
to his jaw, but it dropped as if the spring had broken when he caught
sight of me waiting for him in the reading-room.
"You here?" he asked as he threw himself into a chair.
"You bet," I said. "I wanted to hear how you made out. You settled the
whole business, I take it?" but I knew mighty well from his looks that
he hadn't settled anything.
"Not--not exactly--that is to say, entirely; but I've made a very
satisfactory beginning."
"Began it all over again, I suppose."
This hit so near the truth that Jack jumped, in spite of himself, and
then he burst out with a really swear. I couldn't have been more
surprised if your Ma had cussed.
"Damn it, sir, I won't stand any more of your confounded meddling. Those
letters were a piece of outrageous brutality. I'm breaking off with the
girls, but I've gone about it in a gentler and, I hope, more dignified,
way."
"Jack, I don't believe any such stuff and guff. You're tied up to them
harder and tighter than ever."
I could see I'd made a bull's eye, for Jack began to bluster, but I cut
him short with:
"Go to the devil your own way," and walked out of the club. I reckon
that Jack felt mighty disturbed for as much as an hour, but a good
dinner took the creases out of his system. He'd found that Miss Moore
didn't intend to go to the Blairs', and that Miss Curzon had planned to
go to a dance with her sister somewheres else, so he calculated on
having a clear track for a trial spin with Miss Churchill.
I surprised your Ma a good deal that evening by allowing that I'd go to
the Blairs' myself, for it looked to me as if the finals might be
trotted there, and I thought I'd better be around, because, while I
didn't see much chance of getting any sense into Jack's head, I felt I
ought to do what I could on my friendship account with his father.
Jack was talking to Miss Churchill when I came into the room, and he was
tending to business so strictly that he didn't see me bearing down on
him from one side of the room, nor Edith Curzon's sister, Mrs. Dick, a
mighty capable young married woman, bearing down on him from the other,
nor Miss Curzon, with one of his roses in her hair, watching him from a
corner. There must have been a council of war between the sisters that
afternoon, and a change of their plans for the evening.
[Illustration: "_Miss Curzon, with one of his roses in her hair,
watching him from a corner._"]
Mrs. Dick beat me stalking Jack, but I was just behind, a close second.
He didn't see her until she got right up to him and rapped him on the arm
with her fan.
"Dear Jack," she says, all smiles and sugar; "dear Jack, I've just
heard. Edith has told me, though I'd suspected something for a long,
long time, you rogue," and she fetched him another kittenish clip with
the fan.
Jack looked about the way I once saw old Miss Curley, the president of
the Good Templars back in our town in Missouri, look at a party when she
half-swallowed a spoonful of her ice cream before she discovered that it
was flavored with liquor.
But he stammered something and hurried Miss Churchill away, though not
before a fellow who was going by had wrung his hand and said,
"Congratulations, old chap. Just heard the news."
Jack's only idea seemed to travel, and to travel far and fast, and he
dragged his partner along to the other end of the room, while I
followed the band. We had almost gone the length of the course, when
Jack, who had been staring ahead mighty hard, shied and balked, for
there, not ten feet away, stood Miss Moore, carrying his lilies, and
blushing and smiling at something young Blakely was saying to her.
I reckon Jack guessed what that something was, but just then Blakely
caught sight of him and rushed up to where he was standing.
"I congratulate you, Jack," he said. "Miss Moore's a charming girl."
And now Miss Churchill slipped her hand from his arm and turned and
looked at Jack. Her lips were laughing, but there was something in her
eye which made Jack turn his own away.
"Oh, you lucky Jack," she laughed. "You twice lucky Jack."
Jack simply curled up: "Wretched mistake somewhere," he mumbled.
"Awfully hot here--get you a glass of water," and he rushed off. He
dodged around Miss Moore, and made a flank movement which got him by
Miss Curzon and safely to the door. He kept on; I followed.
I had to go to New York on business next day. Jack had already gone
there, bought a ticket for Europe, and was just loafing around the pier
trying to hurry the steamer off. I went down to see him start, and he
looked so miserable that I'd have felt sorry for him if I hadn't seen
him look miserable before.
"Is it generally known, sir, do you think?" he asked me humbly. "Can't
you hush it up somehow?"
"Hush it up! You might as well say 'Shoo!' to the Limited and expect it
to stop for you."
"Mr. Graham, I'm simply heartbroken over it all. I know I shall never
reach Liverpool. I'll go mad on the voyage across, and throw myself
overboard. I'm too delicately strung to stand a thing of this sort."
"Delicate rats! You haven't nerve enough not to stand it," I said.
"Brace up and be a man, and let this be a lesson to you. Good-by."
Jack took my hand sort of mechanically and looked at me without seeing
me, for his grief-dimmed eyes, in straying along the deck, had lit on
that pretty little Southern baggage, Fanny Fairfax. And as I started off
he was leaning over her in the same old way, looking into her brown eyes
as if he saw a full-course dinner there.
"Think of _your_ being on board!" I heard him say. "I'm the luckiest
fellow alive; by Jove, I am!"
I gave Jack up, and an ex-grass widow is keeping him in order now. I
don't go much on grass widows, but I give her credit for doing a pretty
good job. She's got Jack so tame that he eats out of her hand, and so
well trained that he don't allow strangers to pet him.
I inherited one Jack--I couldn't help that. But I don't propose to wake
up and find another one in the family. So you write me what's what by
return.
Your affectionate father,
JOHN GRAHAM.
+-----------------------------+
| No. 20 |
+-----------------------------+
| From John Graham, at the |
| Boston House of Graham & |
| Co., to his son, |
| Pierrepont, at the Union |
| Stock Yards in Chicago. |
| Mr. Pierrepont has told |
| the old man "what's what" |
| and received a limited |
| blessing. |
+-----------------------------+