Life — June 26, 1884 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

LIFE ever of them comes to the scratch first shall have this poor little Mamie for his own. And yet——” Here the front gate slammed, the door bell jangled, and a moment lateraletter was placed in her hand. Mamie had studied shorthand three months, With time and care and a dic- tionary she could make out other peo- ple’s _stenographic notes very nicely, pro- vided they had been slowly and carefully written. So without any delay she turned up the light in her dow- doir and fell to work. Half an hour later, when our poor heroine’s face wore a look of weary perplexity and hope deferred most sad to see, the front gate slammed again, the door bell jangled once more, and a second note was put into her hands. It was a blotted, tear-stained scrawl, but as her eyes ran down its lines a simile of relief, of gratification, of delight illumined her face. ‘‘ Let the boy wait,” she called, and immediately sat down to her éscritoire. . **SO, WITHOUT ANY DELAY, SHE TURNED UP THE LIGHT IN HER BOUDOIR AND FELL TO WORK.” Ill. ON’T say that I am too late!” The time is the next evening; the place, the little parlor in Cambridge ; the speaker, Mr. Tommy Shorthand, who, after a day of torment on the anxious seat, has come out in person to see what the trouble is; the speaker, Miss Mamie Love- lace, who stands before him just under the chandelier with her entire répertoire of emotions playing over her lovely face. “Notitoo late, but just late enough !” comes in a manly voice from the dim and unexplored recesses of the bay-window, and a figure but too well known thrusts aside the curtain and advances toward him. Great Czsar’s ghost! It is Willy Longhand—no other. And great Ceesar’s grandmother ! how triumphantly he smiles! ‘‘ Read that!” he says, Tommy clutches the extended note. his eye: “cs And this is what meets Monpay EVENING. My DarineG WILLY :—Your favor of even date received, and contents noted. In reply I would say that I accept with pleasure the kind offer therein conveyed and would suggest to-morrow eve, at 7 P. M. as the fittest time to conclude the preliminaries of the transaction. Ever your own and only Mamie. Willy pulls out his stem-winder. ‘“ Well,” he says, with the brevity of scornful triumph, “ it is 7:03, just ; and,” catching and extending Mamie’s left hand, “ behold the preliminary !” “Mine was a—a—proposal too,” is all that the crushed and dumbfounded Tommy can find to say. 357 “Oh, it was, was it?” rejoins Mamie, with cold impatience, “ How could / tell what such a mess meant ? your washerwoman had attached your effects.” All was now clear to the miserable Tommy. She had got his note first, but had not been able to read it. For the poor fellow, exhausted by his long tussle with the polysyllabic Hindoo and over-excited by his unique contest with Willy Longhand, had produced something that even he himself could not have de- ciphered ten minutes after the writing. A dazed look came over his colorless face, and a few faint sounds dribbled through his ashy lips. “T see—I understand. Oh, had I’ but followed Gaskell with the same devotion that I have pursued Graham, I should ne'er have been—o’ertaken—by as—cold a day as this!” He swooned, Mamie lightly touched the bell. ‘* Please remove it,” she said to the astonished menial. * * * * * * * * Willy and Mamie are now domiciled together in a pretty little dove-cote in Dorchester ; Tommy is keeping bachelor’s hall in the South Boston Institution for Idiotic and Feeble-minded Youth. The race is not always to the swift. That is the long and the short of it. I thought perhaps BLAKE FULLER. EN PASSANT. | HEY were sitting at the club window watching the rain as it pelted down. At last the bald- headed man said to the old bachelor : “Teddy, old chap, why have you never married?” “Well,” answered Teddy, “you see the trouble was that the ones 7 wanted didn’t want me, and the ones that wanted me were a pretty tough lot. And now, if I do not seem too inquisitive, may I ask why you have persisted in playing the psalm of life on a one-stringed fiddle?” “Well, with me it has been a principle. As a dis- ciple of Schopenhauer, I realize that the awful miseries of this world’ will continue as long as people persist in marrying and perpetuating the race, and as a matter of duty I indulge in a solo instead of a duet.” A few days later, Teddy happening into a chemist’s, found the bald-headed man buying a bottle of “Ayer’s Hair Vigor.” “ Going to renew your youth and start all over again, eh?” “Well, to tell the truth, old man, I’m engaged—be married next Autumn, and —" “Suffering Moses! and it was only last week you were preaching me such a sermon on the wickedness of the whole business and how it was a matter of principle ——” “Yes—yes—I know,” interrupted the bald-headed man. “But you can’t imagine what an awful differ- ence it makes whether she ’ll have you or not } ik And then the shop clerk broke in with, “Can’t I sell you some ‘Ayer’s Pills’? They'll start your liver up and do your complexion a world of good.” And the bald-headed man said he believed he would take a box, and then leaned up against the counter and tried to look as if he didn’t care about anything anyway. R. K. comicbooks.com