Judge — September 13, 1919 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Droen by KR. B. Peturn “Hey, Ma, Basy’s Goin’ to Have tu’ Honor o’ Bein’ tH’ First to Fry Across tu’ Creek!” gave her a sweetly uncomfortable embarrassment, like that of an Episcopal clergyman who finds his pockets filled with molasses. When, however, at 3 a. m., he followed her out of the Cafe, wildly beckoning, she knew he was after her. The very way he grabbed her arm told her that he was one who would not hesitate to lay hands upon her if he dared. She turned upon him like a fish hook, like a piece of sewing silk when a man tries to thread a needle. But in her heart, she was already crying “* Kamerad!” Already she could see their marriage certificate framed in a decoration of dropsical cupids, and her name spelled wrong... she could hear herself replying, “You bet I will!’ . . . She closed her eyes with both hands. ... Perhaps ... Perhaps, to their happy Hoboken home, with a live linoleum in the kitchen, and quartered oak carpets, Little Children might come to bless them—and have mumps—and pour hot choco- late into the grand piano... perhaps... per... “Fly with me!” Then it was true—True! Every girl who has ever been abducted or has been to the movies, knows that delicious alarm. It is much like bathing in champagne for the first time; one doesn’t know whether one will be drunk, or drowned. One is aware only of the expense. So Angie struggled, and was struggled at... until a red table cloth was thrown over her head, and she was intoxified by love. Then all was dark—as dark as the inside of a lead pencil. * . . . . . Angie was dreaming she was being. kissed by Lloyd George, when she was awakened by 3 fly philandering across her upper lip. She was alone in a circus tent with her captor and the fly. The latter she instantly recog- nized as one she had known quite intimately, on Avenue B. The former was just as unknown as usual. The heat was intense, as it sometimes is in tents; and somewhere in the middle distance she could distinctly hear a Fat Woman eating cream with a ladle. A clock struck Four. Angie felt that it was long past three o'clock. “Where were you born?” demanded he to which we have already referred. This was a strange question, thought Angic. Some, indeed, had asked her When she was born, but most asked merely Why. She was a strange girl, especially to strangers. “In Mozambique?” Angie trembled like a guava jelly. But she could not tell a lie; no one can with a mouth full of table cloth. “Come here!” He fairly uttered the words. And then, seizing her hand, he gazed at it like a palmist giving a fifty-cent reading. But not so lovingly. “My word,” he exclaimed, at last, “you are not manicured! Have you got the face to say you are not a _monkey—and with that face?” With a pitiful slob the proprietor of the Side Show of Freaks rushed out of the tent, leaving it there with Angie and the fly. For a moment the Fat Woman stopped eating, and even the fly turned pale... . And Angie, poor Angie, so thusly duped, gazing sadly at her finger nails, so rich in real estate, realized too late that the way to a man’s heart is through the Beauty Parlor. For no man could make a monkey of Angie; she hadn’t enough brains. And besides, monkeys, like poets, are born, not made. ‘The Very End)