Life — August 5, 1915 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

236 riage were Aunt Sarah and Uncle John. Judge Thompson was on the porch in time to receive his guests. “We've come to get a divorce,” said Aunt Sarah, with a direct gaze; then she added, with the sang froid of one who is wise, “ What'll it cost?” The judge motioned them to seats in the wicker chairs on the porch, and then replied: “But you must have grounds—" erybody knows it. Incompati- 'y of temperament.” And the judge, smiling, humored Aunt Sarah, for he knew her and the community in which she lived. “It will cost you just ten dollars,” he said. “Make out the papers,” Aunt Sarah replied. One hour later Uncle John and Aunt Sarah left the judge’s house together, separated for life. Moses, their horse, looked at them out of the corner of his good eye as they approached the carriage. Uncle John paused, but Aunt Sarah stepped firmly into the vehicle. Uncle John followed her and took up the reins, Moses knew the way home by a clairvoyant sense, and he took that way at his own pace of prophet-like dignity. At the door of the old homestead Uncle John handed Aunt Sarah down from her seat in silence. Then he put Moses into his stall. And when he returned to the house he found Aunt Sarah beaming upon him through her gold-rimmed = spectacles. from her place at the table, which was loaded with a supper such as she alone could cook. Aunt Sarah was jubilant. She was living at last with a man to whom she was not married; no longer was there a blot on the 'scutcheon of her intel- lectual progress; no longer did a black beetle mar the pellucid amber of her simple life of Advanced Ideas; no longer could the acolytes, in off mo- ments when they were not engaged in trundling the spheres through the macrocosm, gaze sternly down upon her through interstellar space and say: “Aunt Sarah is nearly, but not quite, an intellectual.” “PLEASE, MUM, I’M LOOKIN’ FER A JOB, ANY LITTLE JOB'LL DO—THE SMALLER THE BETTER” Social “M*Y I utter a word of criticism?” He had been invited down for the week-end ; it was now Monday, and he was just about to take his depar- ture, A man about town, he was conspicuously welcome in tlte smartest establishments. Indeed, his popularity had perhaps ‘spoiled him and given him the privilege of saying things which from another would have been ill received. “Certainly you may,” replied his hostess, with a smile. “Your house is charming, your hos- pitality above all praise; but in your invitation you mentioned as one of the inducements for my visit the presence of a beautiful married woman, and you subtly gave me to understand I could enliven my visit by flirting with her. Lo, I arrive, and she is not here. Nothing is said about her. And now I depart with- out my promised fun.” The hostess laid a reproachful hand vpon his arm. “Iam so sorry,” she murmured. “I did not apologize because I was too embarrassed. It was my fault. I got my dates mixed. I should have asked you last week instead of this. Will you forgive me? You see, this week was the week in which my husband arranged to take her off with him on his yacht.” comicbooks.com