The Wit and Humor of America Volume VI Part 8

"My mother--" he began.

"You simply can not act so dishonorably, Jones."

He sat silent for a little while.

"My mother--" he started in again finally.

"Surely your mother loves you?" I demanded.

"That's the terrible part of it, Westoby, she--"

"Pooh!"

"She stinted herself to get me through col--"

"Then why did you ever come here?"

"That's just the question I'm asking myself now."

"I don't see that you have any right to a.s.sume all that about your mother, anyway. Eleanor Van Coort is a woman of a thousand--unimpeachable social position--a little fortune of her own--accomplished, handsome, charming, sought after--why, if you managed to win such a girl as that your mother would walk on air."

"No, she wouldn't. Bertha--"

"You're a pretty cheap lover," I said. "I don't set up to be a little tin hero, but I'd go through fire and water for _my_ girl. Good heavens, love is love, and all the mothers--"

He let out a few more groans.

"Then, see here, Jones," I went on, "you owe some courtesy to our hostess. If you went away to-night it would be an insult. Whatever you decide to do later, you've simply got to stay here till Tuesday morning!"

"Must I?" he said, in the tone of a person who is ordered not to leave the sinking ship.

"A gentleman has to," I said.

He quavered out a sort of acquiescence, and then asked me for the loan of a white tie. I should have loved to give him a bowstring instead, with somebody who knew how to operate it. He was a fluff, that fellow--a tarnation fluff!

IV

It was a pretty glum evening all round. Most of them thought that Jones had got the chilly mitt. Eleanor looked pale and undecided, not knowing what to make of Jones' death's-head face. She was resentful and pitying in turns, and I saw all the material lying around for a first-cla.s.s conflagration. Freddy was a bit down on me, too, saying that a smoother method would have ironed out Jones, and that I had been headlong and silly. She cried over it, and wouldn't kiss me in the dark; and I was goaded into saying--well, the course of true love ran in b.u.mps that night. There was only one redeeming circ.u.mstance, and that was my managing to keep Jones and Eleanor apart. I mean that I insisted on being number three till at last poor Eleanor said she had a headache, and forlornly went up to bed.

Jones was still asleep when I got up the next morning at six and dressed myself quietly so as not to awake him. It was now Monday, and you can see for yourself there was no time to spare. I gave the butler a dollar, and ordered him to say that unexpected business had called me away without warning, but that I should be back by luncheon. I rather overdid the earliness of it all. At least, I hove off 1892 Eighth Avenue at eight-fifteen A.M. I loitered about; looked at p.a.w.nshop windows; gave a careful examination to a forty-eight-dollar-ninety-eight-cent complete outfit for a four-room flat; had a chat with a policeman; a.s.sisted at a runaway; advanced a nickel to a colored gentleman in distress; had my shoes shined by another; helped a child catch an escaped parrot--and still it wasn't nine! Idleness is a grinding occupation, especially on Eighth Avenue in the morning.

Mrs. Jones was a thin, straight-backed, brisk old lady, with a keen tongue, and a Yankee faculty for coming to the point. I besought her indulgence, and laid the whole Eleanor matter before her--at least, as much of it as seemed wise. I appeared in the role of her son's warmest admirer and best friend.

"Surely you won't let Harry ruin his life from a mistaken sense of his duty to you?"

"Duty, fiddlesticks!" said she. "He's going to marry Bertha Mc.n.u.tt!"

"But he doesn't want to marry Bertha Mc.n.u.tt!"

"Then he needn't marry anybody."

She seemed to think this a triumphant answer. Indeed, in some ways I must confess it was. But still I persevered.

"It puts me out to have him shilly-shallying around like this," she said. "I'll give him a good talking to when he gets back. This other arrangement has been understood between Mrs. Mc.n.u.tt and myself for years."

She was an irritating person. I found it not a little difficult to keep my temper with her. It's easier to fight dragons than to temporize with them and appeal to their better nature. I appealed and appealed. She watched me with the same air of interested detachment that one gives to a squirrel revolving in a cage. I could feel that she was flattered; her sense of power was agreeably tickled; my earnestness and despair enhanced the zest of her reiterated refusals. I was a very nice young man, but her son was going to marry Bertha Mc.n.u.tt or marry n.o.body!

Then I tried to draw a lurid picture of his revolt from her ap.r.o.n-strings.

"Oh, Harry's a good boy," she said. "You can't make me believe that two days has altered his whole character. I'll answer for his doing what I want."

I felt a precisely similar conviction, and my heart sank into my shoes.

At this moment there was a tap at the door, and another old lady bounced in. She was stout, jolly-looking and effusive. The greetings between the pair were warm, and they were evidently old friends. But underneath the new-comer's gush and noise I was dimly conscious of a sort of gay hostility. She was exultant and frightened, both at once, and her eyes were sparkling.

"Well, what do you think?" she cried out explosively.

Mrs. Jones' lips tightened. There was a mean streak in that old woman. I could see she was feeling for her little hatchet, and was getting out her little gun.

"Bertha!" exploded the old lady. "Bertha--"

(Mysterious mental processes at once informed me that this was none other than Bertha's mother.)

Mrs. Jones was coolly taking aim. I was reminded of that old military dictum: "Don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes!"

"Bertha," vociferated the old lady fiercely--"Bertha has been secretly married to Mr. Stuffenhammer for the last three months!"

Another series of kinematographic mental processes informed me that Mr.

Stuffenhammer was an immense catch.

"Twenty thousand dollars a year, and her own carriage," continued Mrs.

Mc.n.u.tt gloatingly. "You could have knocked me down with a feather.

Bertha is such a considerate child; she insisted on marrying secretly so that she could tone it down by degrees to poor Harry; though there was no engagement or anything like that, she could not help feeling, of course, that she owed it to the dear boy to gradually--"

Mrs. Jones never turned a hair or moved a muscle.

"You needn't pity Harry," she said. "I've just got the good news that he's engaged to one of the sweetest and richest girls in Morristown."

I jumped for my hat and ran.

V

You never saw anybody so electrified as Jones. For a good minute he couldn't even speak. It was like bringing a horseback reprieve to the hero on the stage. He repeated "Stuffenhammer, Stuffenhammer," in tones that Henry Irving might have envied, while I gently undid the noose around his neck. I led him under a tree and told him to buck up. He did so--slowly and surely--and then began to ask me agitated questions about proposing. He deferred to me as though I had spent my whole life Bluebearding through the social system. He wanted to be coached how to do it, you know. I told him to rip out the words--any old words--and then kiss her.

"Don't let there be any embarra.s.sing pause," I said. "A girl hates pauses."

"It seems a great liberty," he returned. "It doesn't strike me as r-r-respectful."