Life — April 2, 1896 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

* LIFE: back to earth again. They were coming through the door. It was two ,/ pews apart after all. He knew he had been right. He noticed that the Girl's Usher seemed as cheerful as could be expected of him, He Monkey: “ AR exalted position, and the next instant the familiar ‘‘tum-tum-ti-tum” pealed through the church. The music had begun, He felt that his troubles were over, for anything was better than that silent staring. For a moment he could not make out what had all at once changed the appearance of things somuch. Then he discovered that the sea \ of faces had turned into an equally bewildering exhibition of back hair, and in an instant a suggestive phrase of the music sent the words of a new popular song running through his mind. What was the matter with his mind, anyway, that he should think of such rot then? Why couldn't he stop thinking ? “Tum-tum-ti-tum.” The music not only had begun but it seemed to him as if it had always been playing. Why did they not start ? What was the use of all that rehearsing if they didn't know what to do when the time came? “* Tum-tum-ti-tum" played the organist. It seemed an easy matter for eight grown men to walk up a broad aisle together, two by two, a certain distance apart, They had done it half a dozen times the night before. It was perfectly simple. They were to be two pewsapart. Or wasit three pews? ‘‘Ti-tum-tum-ti-tum,” He didn’t know which it was, but it was no affair of his, anyway. All he had to do was to stay on his chalk mark until it was time for him to go to that other chalk sark over there to receive her. There it was, a little rubbed out, to be sure, but seeming to him like the guiding star to the path of matrimony, and to it he had hitched his wagon. A scarcely breathed ‘‘They're off" at his elbow brought him DISCOVERED. “TL LEARNED TO THRUM A BIT AT HARVARD, YOU KNOW." “OH, OF COURSE! JACK saéd YOU LEARNED SOMETHING OR wondered how he would feel if he had to change places with him. How had it happened that their places were not changed ? He knew that he was a better fellow than the Girl's Usher, of course, but how had he managed to make her believe it? He knew better men than he who had been Girl's Ushers in their time. onkey (resuming his former position): “FOOL! “Tum-tum-ti-tum, ‘The two ushers in the lead were within twenty feet of him. Why didn't they move faster? It made him nervous to see them advanc- ing upon him like that. It was like the car of Juggernaut or the inexorable march of time, They were bringing him the happiness of his whole life. Why didn’t they bring it to him faster? It seemed more like the reluctant approach of bearers of misfortune. Those fellows had always stood by him before,why should they come at him now? Why didn't they all point their fingers at him like the ghosts in Ruddygore? There were the bridesmaids, too. He had always supposed that they were nice, kind-hearted girls, though he had never appreciated before how pretty the second one on the left really There they were coming at him in the same relentless way. All of them were the pendulum swinging nearer and nearer to push him into the pit. “Tum-tum-ti-tum-tum.” The two ushers in the lead were so near him that he could see the pearls on the pins he had yiven them, There she was, heaven bless her! What was the sense of all this bother?) Why couldn't he rush down the aisle and get her, all by himself? His eye fell upon the relentless chalk mark before him, and he shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other, The two files of ushers had begun to deploy on either side of him, each man trying to keep one eye on his alignment and with the other to steer for the haven of his own particular chalk mark. Asthelast one disappeared from view behind him he felt that he never wanted to see one of them again after the way they had just treated him. The next moment the bridesmaids were tripping by him, guided to their positions by that unerring instinct in regard to all that pertains to weddings which is every woman's birthright. It seemed to him that the maid of honor was wearing her hair differently. The organist looked around from his seat and retarded the next measure of the music. Then the final “*tum-tum-ti-tum” rang out triumphantly into every corner of the church. He rushed to the now benignly inviting chalk mark, and in an instant ber hand was in his own, was. N eel in an ash barrel is no comparison to the OTHER THERE AND I COULDN'T IMAGINE WHAT IT WAS,” average man at an afternoon tea. comicbooks.com