The Wit and Humor of America Volume X Part 10

"I can tell fortunes. I'm extremely good at it," he boasted. "I'll tell you yours."

"Oh, very well," she a.s.sented, sitting down again: and guilelessly she pulled off her glove.

He took her hand, a beautifully slender, nervous hand, warm and soft, with rosy, tapering fingers.

"Oho! you _are_ an old maid after all," he cried. "There's no wedding ring."

"You villain!" she gasped, s.n.a.t.c.hing the hand away.

"I promised to tell your fortune. Haven't I told it correctly?"

"You needn't rub it in, though. Eccentric old maids don't like to be reminded of their condition."

"Will you marry _me_?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Partly for curiosity. Partly because it's the only way I can think of, to make sure of seeing you again. And then, I like your hair. Will you?"

"I can't," she said.

"Why not?"

"The stars forbid. And I'm ambitious. In my horoscope it is written that I shall either never marry at all, or--marry royalty."

"Oh, bother ambition! Cheat your horoscope. Marry me. Will you?"

"If you care to follow me," she said, rising again, "you can come and help me to commit a little theft."

He followed her to an obscure and sheltered corner of a flowery path, where she stopped before a bush of white lilac.

"There are no keepers in sight, are there? she questioned.

"I don't see any," he said.

"Then allow me to make you a receiver of stolen goods," said she, breaking off a spray, and handing it to him.

"Thank you. But I'd rather have an answer to my question."

"Isn't that an answer?"

"Is it?"

"White lilac--to the Invisible Prince?"

"The Invisible Prince--Then you _are the black_ domino!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, I suppose so," she consented.

"And you _will_ marry me?"

"I'll tell the aunt I live with to ask you to dinner."

"But will you marry me?"

"I thought you wished me to cheat my horoscope?"

"How could you find a better means of doing so?"

"What! if I should marry Louis Leczinski--?"

"Oh, to be sure. You will have it that I was Louis Leczinski. But, on that subject, I must warn you seriously--"

"One instant," she interrupted. "People must look other people straight in the face when they're giving serious warnings. Look straight into my eyes, and continue your serious warning."

"I must really warn you seriously," said he, biting his lip, "that if you persist in that preposterous delusion about my being Louis Leczinski, you'll be most awfully sold. I have nothing on earth to do with Louis Leczinski. Your ingenious little theories, as I tried to convince you at the time, were absolute romance."

Her eyebrows raised a little, she kept her eyes fixed steadily on his--oh, in the drollest fashion, with a gaze that seemed to say "How admirably you do it! I wonder whether you imagine I believe you. Oh, you fibber! Aren't you ashamed to tell me such abominable fibs--?"

They stood still, eyeing each other thus, for something like twenty seconds, and then they both laughed and walked on.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] From _Comedies and Errors_. Reprinted by permission of the John Lane Company.

WHY WAIT FOR DEATH AND TIME?

BY BERT LESTON TAYLOR

I hold it truth with him who weekly sings Brave songs of hope,--the music of "The Sphere,"-- That deathless tomes the living present brings: Great literature is with us year on year.

Books of the mighty dead, whom men revere, Remind me I can make _my_ books sublime.

But, prithee, bay my brow while I am here: Why do we ever wait for Death and Time?

Shakespeare, great spirit, beat his mighty wings, As I beat mine, for the occasion near.

He knew, as I, the worth of present things: Great literature is with us year on year.

Methinks I meet across the gulf his clear And tranquil eye; his calm reflections chime With mine: "Why do we at the present fleer?

Why do we ever wait for Death and Time?"

The reading world with acclamation rings For my last book. It led the list at Weir, Altoona, Rahway, Painted Post, Hot Springs: Great literature is with us year on year.

"The Bookman" gives me a vociferous cheer.

Howells approves. I can no higher climb.

Bring, then, the laurel: crown my bright career-- Why do we ever wait for Death and Time?

Critics, who pastward, ever pastward peer, Great literature is with us year on year.

Trumpet my fame while I am in my prime: Why do we ever wait for Death and Time?