CHAPTER IVYOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT GETTING A GOAT
Hep Hardy's goat belongs to the chamois branch of that famous family.
When it gets out it wants to leap from crag to crag.
Hep's chamois got loose recently and, believe me, I never saw a goat perform to better advantage.
For a long time Hep has been in love with Clarissa Goober, the daughter of Pop Goober, who made millions out of the Flower-pot Trust. Of late, however, Hep's course of true love has been running for Sweeney, andmy old pal has been staring at the furniture and conversing with himself a great deal.
On our way home night before last Hep and I dropped into the Saint Astormore for a cocktail, and at a table near us sat Pop Goober and something else which afterwards turned out to be a Prussian nobleman—the Count Cheese von Cheese.
When Hep got a flash of these two his goat kicked down the door of its box-stall and begancavorting all over the Western Hemisphere.
"Pipe!" he whispered hoarsely, "pipe Pop Goober and the human germ with him! It's a titled foreigner—honest it is! It can walk and say, 'Papa!' And it is trained to pick out a millionaire father-in-law at fifty paces!"
"Why, what's the matter, Hep?" I inquired after the waiter had vamped.
"Oh, I'm wise to these guys with the Gorgonzola titles all wrapped up in pink tissue paper and only $8 in the jeans," Hep rumbled, with a glare in the direction of the Count Cheese von Cheese.
"Pop Goober certainly does make both ends meet in the lemon industry," he continued."That old gink is the original Onion collector and he spends his waking hours falling for dead ones."
Hep paused to bite the froth off a Bronx. His goat was at the post.
"That driblet is over here to pick out an heiress and fall in love with her because he needs the money," Hep growled as his goat got away in the lead. "Every steamer brings them over, John, someincognito, some in dress suits, and some inhoc signo vinces, but all of them able to pick out a lady with a bank account as far as the naked eye can see.
"It's getting so now, John, that an open-face, stem-winding American has to kick four Dukes, eight Earls, seven Counts and a coupleof Princes off the front steps every time he goes to call on his sweetheart—if she has money.
"When I go down into Wall Street, John, I find rich men with the tears streaming down their faces while they are calling up on the telephone to see if their daughter, Gladys, is still safe at home, where they left her before they came down to business.
"Walk through a peachy palace of the rich on Fifth Avenue, and what will you find?
"Answer: You will find a proud mother bowed with a great grief, and holding onto a rope which is tied to her daughter's ankle to prevent the latter from running out on thefront piazza, and throwing kisses at the titled foreigners.
"You will find these cheap skates everywhere, John, rushing hither and thither, and sniffing the air for the odor of burning money."
Hep's goat at the quarter and going strong.
"They're all over the place, John," he rushed on; "the street cars are full of Earls and Baronets, traveling on transfers. There they are, John, sitting in the best seats and reading the newspapers until an heiress jumps aboard and hands them her address, with a memorandum of her papa's bank account.
"Then they arise with the true nobility ofmotion and ask that a day be set for the wedding.
"Why should it be thus, John? We have laws in this country to protect the birds and the trees, the squirrels and all animals except those that can be reached by an automobile, but why don't we have a law to protect the heiresses?
"Why are these titled zimboes permitted to borrow carfare, and come over here and give this fair land a fit of indigestion?
"Why are they permitted to set their proud and large feet on the soil for which our forefathers fought and bled for their country, and for which some of us are still fighting andbleeding the country? Why? Why do these fat-heads come over here with a silver cigarette case and a society directory and make every rich man in the country fasten a burglar alarm to his checkbook?"
Hep's goat at the half by a length.
"A few days ago, John, one of these mutts with an Edam title jumped off an ocean liner, and immediately the price of padlocks rose to the highest point ever known on the Stock Exchange.
"All over the country rich men with romantic daughters rushed to and fro and then rushed back again. They were up against a crisis. If you could get near enough to thelong-distance telephone, John, you could hear one rich old American guy shrieking the battle-cry to another captain of industry out in Indianapolis: 'To arms! The foe! The foe! He comes with nothing but his full dress suit and a blank marriage license! To arms! To arms!'"
Hep's goat at the three-quarters by two lengths.
"Why, John," he exploded again, "every telegraph wire in the country is sizzling with excitement. Despatches which would make your blood curdle with anguish and sorrow for the rich are flying all over the country. Something like this:
"'Boston. To-day."'At ten-thirty this morning Rudolph Oscar Grabbitall, the millionaire stone-breaker, read the startling news that a foreign Count had just landed in New York. His suffering was pathetic. His daughter, Gasolene Panatella, who will inherit $19,000,000, mostly in bonds, stocks and newspaper talk, was in the dental parlor five blocks away from home when the blow fell. Calling his household about him, Mr. Grabbitall rushed into the dental parlor, beat the dentist down with his bill, dragged Gasolene Panatella home and locked her up in the rear cupboard of the spare room on the second floor of the mansion. Her teeth suffered somewhat, but, thankHeaven! her money will remain in this country. The community breathes easier, but all the incoming trains are being watched.'
"'Boston. To-day.
"'At ten-thirty this morning Rudolph Oscar Grabbitall, the millionaire stone-breaker, read the startling news that a foreign Count had just landed in New York. His suffering was pathetic. His daughter, Gasolene Panatella, who will inherit $19,000,000, mostly in bonds, stocks and newspaper talk, was in the dental parlor five blocks away from home when the blow fell. Calling his household about him, Mr. Grabbitall rushed into the dental parlor, beat the dentist down with his bill, dragged Gasolene Panatella home and locked her up in the rear cupboard of the spare room on the second floor of the mansion. Her teeth suffered somewhat, but, thankHeaven! her money will remain in this country. The community breathes easier, but all the incoming trains are being watched.'
"Are you wise, John, to what the panhandling nobility of Europe are doing to our dear United States?
"They are putting all our millionaires on the fritz, that's what they're doing."
Hep's goat in the stretch, under wraps.
"Le'me tell you something, John; it will soon come to pass that the heiress will have to be locked up in the safe deposit vaults with papa's bank book. Here is an item from one of our most prominent newspapers. Get this, John:
"'Long Island City. Now."'Pinchem Shortface, the millionaire who made a fortune by inventing a way to open clams by steam, has determined that no foreign Count will marry his daughter, Sudsetta. She will inherit about $193,000,000, about $18 of which is loose enough to spend. The unhappy father is building a spite fence around his mansion, which will be about twenty-two feet high, and all the unmarried millionaires without daughters, to speak of, will contribute broken champagne bottles to put on top of the fence. If the Count gets Sudsetta he is more of a sparrow than her father thinks he is.'
"'Long Island City. Now.
"'Pinchem Shortface, the millionaire who made a fortune by inventing a way to open clams by steam, has determined that no foreign Count will marry his daughter, Sudsetta. She will inherit about $193,000,000, about $18 of which is loose enough to spend. The unhappy father is building a spite fence around his mansion, which will be about twenty-two feet high, and all the unmarried millionaires without daughters, to speak of, will contribute broken champagne bottles to put on top of the fence. If the Count gets Sudsetta he is more of a sparrow than her father thinks he is.'
"It's pitiful, John, that's what it is, pitiful! All over the country rich men are dropping their beloved daughters in the cyclone cellars and hiding mamma's stocking with the money in it out in the hay loft.
"I am glad, John, that I am not a rich man with a daughter who is eating her heart out for a moth-covered title and a castle on the Rhinewine.
"You can bet, John, that no daughter of mine can ever marry a tall gent with a nose like the rear end of an observation car and a knowledge of the English language which doesn't get beyond I O U—do you get me?"
Hep's goat wins in a walk.
"Are you all through, Hep?" I inquired feebly.
"I'm not through—but I'll take a recess," he snapped back at me.
"By the way," I said, offhand like, "is Clarissa Goober in town?"
"Yes, but she sails for Europe to-morrow on theImperator," he answered sullenly.
"Oh," I said; "who's going with her?"
"The Count Cheese von Cheese."
"Oh!"
Long pause.
"Let's have another Bronx," I suggested.
Hep took six—one for himself and five for the goat.
Can you blame him?
CHAPTER VYOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT BEING IN LOVE
Say! have you ever noticed that when a gink with an aluminum headpiece is handed the "This-Way-Out" signal by his adored one, he either hikes for a pickle parlor and begins to festoon his system with hops, or he stands in front of a hardware store and gazes gloomily at the guns?
You haven't noticed it! Why, you astonish me.
Friend wife met me by appointment to take dinner at the Saint Astormore the other evening and with her was her little brother, Stephen, aged nine.
"I brought Stevie with me because I had some shopping to do and he's so much company," Peaches explained as we sat down in the restaurant.
"Stevie is always pleasant company," I agreed, politely, but with a watchful eye on my youthful brother-in-law all the while.
That kid was born with an abnormal bump of mischief and, by painstaking endeavor, he has won the world's championship as an organizer of impromptu riots.
"Oh, John!" said Peaches, when I began to make faces at the menu card, "I didn't notice until now how pale you look. Have you had a busy day?"
"Busy!" I repeated; "well, rather. I'vebeen giving imitations of a bull fight. Everybody I met was the bull and I was the fight. Nominate your eats! What'll it be, Stevie?"
"Sponge cake," said Stephen, promptly.
"What else?" asked Peaches.
"More sponge cake," the youth replied, and just then the smiling and sympathetic waiter stooped down to pick up a fork Stephen had dropped.
In his anxiety not to miss anything, Stevie rubbered acrobatically with the result that he upset a glass of ice water down the waiter's neck, and three seconds later the tray-trotter had issued an Extra and was saying things in French that would sound scandalous if translated.
It cost me a dollar to bring the dish-dragger back to earth, and Stevie said I could break his bank open when we got home and take all the money if I'd let him do it again.
Just then I got a flash of Dike Lawrence bearing down in our direction under a full head of benzine.
Dike was escorting a three days' jag and whispering words of encouragement to it.
A good fellow, Dike, but he shouldn't permit a distillery to use his thirst as a testing station—he's too temperamental.
"H'ar'ye, Mrs. John?" he gurgled as the waiter pushed an extra chair under him. "Howdy, John? How de do, little man! 'Scuse me for int'rupting a perf'ly splendidfamily party—my mistake!—I'm all in—that's it—I'm all in and it's your fault, John; all your fault!"
"What's wrong, Dike?" I inquired.
"Ev'thing!" he martinied; "ev'thing all wrong—lesh have drink—my mistake—didn't think of it before. Your little son growing to be a splendid boy, Mrs. John!"
"This is Stephen, my little brother, not my little son," Peaches explained; "we haven't any children," she added nervously.
Dike carefully closed one eye and focussed the other on her. "Haven't any little son—my mistake!" Then he turned the open gig-lamp on me and began again. "S'prised at you, John; little son is the most won'erfulthing any father and mother could possess with the possible 'ception of a li'l daughter—ain't that so, Mrs. John? Little brother is all right, but don't compare with little son. Look at me, Mrs. John; can't ever have little son—when I think about it I could bust right out cryin'—Grief has made me almost hystalical, hystorical, hystollified—I mean, I'm nervous—lesh have drink!"
"What's gone wrong, Dike?" I asked; "each minute you look more and more like Mona Lisa without the smile—what's the trouble?"
"All your fault, John," he plunged on again. "Most bew'ful girl she was, Mrs. John; perf'ly bew'ful, with won'erful gray hair and golden eyes, perf'ly bew'ful girl. I told your husban'all about her—I made confession that I was madly in love with this bew'ful girl, and your husban' told me to go and propose to her and drag her off to a minister—and I did propose—my mistake. After I made my speech she said to me, this bew'ful girl said to me, 'That's all right; no doubt you do love me, but are you eugenic?' and I said, 'No, I'm Presbyterian.'"
Dike paused to let the horror of the scene sink in and then he fell overboard again with a moist splash.
"That bew'ful girl jus' glanced at me coldly—jus' merely indicated the door, that bew'ful girl, and I passed out of her life f'rever. Two days later I found out jus' what eugenicmeant, and, b'lieve me, from my heart, my sincere regret is that I was not college bred before I met that bew'ful girl!"
Saying this he grabbed a wine-glass from the table and held it close to his heart in order to illustrate the intensity of his feeling.
The next instant a thick, reddish liquid began to flow sluggishly over the bosom of his immaculate white shirt and was lost in the region of his equator, seeing which Dike gave vent to a yell that brought the waiters on the hot foot.
"I'm stabbed; stabbed!" groaned the startled jag-carpenter, clutching wildly at his shirt-front as the plate-passers bore him away to a haven of rest.
"It's my clam cocktail," whispered Stephen to me; "I poured it in his wine-glass 'cause they was too much tobascum sauce in it for me!"
"Brave boy!" I answered. "It was a kindly deed."
Then we finished our dinner in all the refined silence the Saint Astormore so carefully furnishes.
Dike's sad story of misplaced affection and an unused dictionary puts us wise to the fact that in these changeful days even the old-fashioned idea of courtship has been chased to the woods.
It used to be that on a Saturday evening the Young Gent would draw down his six dollarsworth of salary and chase himself to the barber shop, where the Bolivian lawn trimmer would put a crimp in his mustache and plaster his forehead with three cents worth of hair and a dollar's worth of axle-grease.
Then the Young Gent would go out and spread 40 cents around among the tradesmen for a mess of water-lilies and a bag of peanut brittle.
The lilies of the valley were to put on the dining-table so mother would be pleased, and with the peanut brittle he intended to fill in the weary moments when he and his little geisha girl were not making goo-goo eyes at each other.
But nowadays it is different.
What with eugenics and the high speed of living Dan Cupid spends most of his time on the hot foot between the coroner's office and the divorce court.
Nowadays when a clever young man goes to visit his sweetheart he hikes over the streets in a benzine buggy, and when he pulls the bell-rope at the front door he has a rapid-fire revolver in one pocket and a bottle of carbolic acid in the other.
His intentions are honorable and he wishes to prove them so by shooting his lady love, if she renigs when he makes a play for her hand.
I think the old style was the best, because when young people quarreled they didn't needan ambulance and a hospital surgeon to help them make up.
In the old days Simpson Green would draw the stove brush cheerfully across his dog-skin shoes and rush with eager feet to see Lena Jones, the girl he wished to make the wife of his bosom.
"Darling!" Simpson would say, "I am sure to the bad for love of you. Pipe the downcast droop in this eye of mine and notice the way my heart is bubbling over like a bottle of sarsaparilla on a hot day! Be mine, Lena! be mine!"
Then Lena would giggle. Not once, but seven giggles, something like those used in a spasm.
Then she would reply, "No, Simpson; it cannot be. Fate wills it otherwise."
Then Simpson would bite his finger-nails, pick his hat up out of the coal-scuttle, and say to Lena, "False one! You love Conrad, the floorwalker in the butcher shop. Curses on Conrad, and see what you have missed, Lena. I have tickets for a swell chowder party next Tuesday. Ah! farewell forever!"
Then Simpson would walk out and hunt up one of those places that can't get an all-night license and there, with one arm glued tight around the bar rail, he would fasten his system to a jag which would last a week.
Despair would grab him and, like Dike, he'd be Simpson with the souse thing for sure.
When he would recover strength enough to walk down town without attracting the attention of the other side of the street, he would call on Lena and say, "Lena, forgive me for what I done, but love is blind—and, besides, I mixed my drinks. Lena, I was on the downward path, and I nearly went to Heligoland."
Then Lena would say, "Oh, Simpsey, I wanted you to prove your love, but I thought you'd prove it with beer and not red-eye—forgive me, darling!"
Then they would kiss and make up, and the wedding bells would ring just as soon as Simp's salary grew large enough to tease a pocketbook.
But these days the idea is altogether different.
Children are hardly out of the cradle before they are arrested for butting into the speed limit with a smoke wagon.
Even when they go courting they have to play to the gallery.
Nowadays Gonsalvo H. Puffenlotz walks into the parlor to see Miss Imogene Cordelia Hoffbrew.
"Wie geht's, Imogene!" says Gonsalvo.
"Simlich!" says Imogene, standing at right angles near the piano because she thinks she is a Gibson girl.
"Imogene, dearest," Gonsalvo continues; "I called on your papa in Wall Street yesterdayto find out how much money you have, but he refused to name the sum, therefore you have untold wealth!"
Gonsalvo pauses to let the Parisian clock on the mantle tick, tick, tick!
He is making the bluff of his life, you see, and he has to do even that on tick.
Besides, this furnishes the local color.
Then Gonsalvo bursts forth again, "Imogene! Oh! Imogene! will you be mine and I will be thine without money and without the price."
Gonsalvo pauses to let this idea get noised about a little.
Then he goes on, "Be mine, Imogene! Youwill be minus the money while I will have the price!"
Gonsalvo trembles with the passion which is consuming his pocketbook, and then Imogene turns languidly from a right angle triangle into more of a straight front and hands Gonsalvo a bitter look of scorn.
Then Gonsalvo grabs his revolver and, aiming it at her marble brow, exclaims, "Marry me this minute or I will shoot you in the topknot, because I love you."
Then papa rushes into the room and Gonsalvo politely requests the old gentleman to hold two or three bullets for him for a few moments.
Gonsalvo then bites deeply into a bottle of carbolic acid and, just as the Coroner climbs into the house, the pictures of the modern lover and loveress appear in the newspapers, and fashionable society receives a jolt.
This is the new and up-to-date way of making love.
However, I think the old style of courting is the best, because you can generally stop a jag before it gets to the undertaker.
What do you think?
CHAPTER VIYOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT SNAP SHOTS
When Aunt Martha gave friend wife that newfangled camera this Spring I had a hunch that the dealers in photographic supplies would be joyously shrieking the return of good times and hot-footing it to the bank with the contents of my wallet.
Peaches just grabbed that camera and went after everybody and everything in the neighborhood.
She took about 800 views of Uncle Peter's country home before she discovered that the camera wasn't loaded properly, which wastough on Peaches but good for the bungalow.
Like everything else in this world picture pinching from still life depends entirely on the point of view.
If your point of view is all right it's an easy matter to make a four-dollar dog-house look like the villa of a Wall Street broker at Newport.
Ten minutes after friend wife had been given the camera she had me set up as a statue all over Uncle Peter's lawn, and she was snapping at me like a Spitz doggie at a peddler.
I sat for two hundred and nineteen pictures that forenoon and I posed for every hero in history, from William the Conqueror down to Doctor Cook, with both feet in a slushylittle snowbank representing nearly-the-North-pole.
But when she tried to coax me to climb up on a limb of a tree and stay there till she got a picture of me looking like an owl I swore softly in three languages, fell over the back fence, and ran for my life.
When I rubbershoed it back that afternoon friend wife was busy developing her crimes.
The proper and up-to-date caper in connection with taking snap-shots these days is to buy a developing outfit and upset the household from pit to dome while you are squeezing out pictures of every dearly beloved friend that crosses your pathway.
Friend wife selected a spare room on the top floor of Uncle Peter's home where she could await developments.
A half hour later ghostly noises began to come from that room and mysterious whisperings fell out of the window and bumped over the lawn.
When I reached the front door I found that the gardener had left, the waitress was leaving,and the cook was telephoning for a policeman.
"Where is Mrs. Henry?" I asked Mary, the cook.
"She is still developing," said Mary.
"What has she developed?" I inquired.
"Up to the present time she has developed your Uncle's temper and she has developed your Aunt's appetite, and a couple of bill collectors developed a pain in the neck when she took their pictures, and, if things go on in this way, I think this will soon develop into a foolish house!" said Mary, the cook.
A half hour later, while I was hiding behind the pianola in the living room, not daring to breathe above a whisper for fear I wouldget my picture taken again, friend wife rushed in exclaiming, "Oh, joy! Oh, joy! John, I have developed two pictures!"
I wish you could have seen the expression on Peaches' face.
In order to develop the films a picturesque assortment of drugs and chemicals have to be used.
Well, friend wife had used them.
A silent little stream of wood alcohol was trickling down over her left ear into her Psyche knot, and on the end of her nose about six grains of extract of potash was sending out signals of distress to some spirits of turpentine which was burning on the top of her right eyebrow.
Something dark and lingering like iodine had given her chin the double-cross and her apron looked like the remnants of a porous plaster.
Her right hand had red, white, green, purple, and magenta marks all over it, and her left hand looked like the Fourth of July.
"John!" she yelled; "here it is! My goodness, I am so excited! See what a fine picture of you I took!"
She handed me the picture, but all I could see was a woodshed with the door wide open.
"A good picture of the woodshed," I said; "but whose woodshed is it?"
"A woodshed!" exclaimed friend wife; "why, that is your face, John. And where youthink the door is open is only your mouth!"
I looked crestfallen and then I looked at the picture again, but my better nature asserted itself and I made no attempt to strike this defenseless woman.
Then she handed me another picture and said, "John, isn't this wonderful?"
I looked at the picture and muttered, "All I can see is Theodore, the colored gardener, walking across lots with a sack of flour on his back!"
"John, you are so stupid," said friend wife. "How can you expect to see what it is when you are holding the picture upside down?"
I turned the picture around, and then I was quite agreeably surprised.
"It's immense!" I shouted. "It's the real thing, all right! Why this is aces! I suppose it is called, 'Moonlight on Lake Champlain'? Did this one come with the camera or did you draw it from memory?"
"The idea of such a thing," friend wife snapped, "can't you see that you're holding the picture the wrong way. Turn it around and you will see what it is!"
I gave the thing another turn.
"Gee whiz!" I said, "now I have it! Oh, the limit! You wished to surprise me with a picture of the sunset at Governor's Island. How lovely it is! See, over here in this corner there's a bunch of soldiers listening to what's cooking for supper, and over here isthe smoke from the gun that sets the sun—I like it!"
Then my wife grabbed the picture out of my hands and burst into speech.
"Why do you try to discourage my efforts to be artistic?" she volleyed and thundered. "This is a picture of you holding Mrs. McIlvaine's baby in your arms, and I think it's perfectly lovely, even if the baby is the only intelligent thing in the picture."
When the exercises were over I inquired casually, "Where, my dear, where are the other 21,219 pictures you snapped to-day?"
"Only these two came out good because, don't you see, I'm an amateur yet," was her come-back.
Then she looked lovingly at the result of her day's work and began to peel some bicarbonate of magnesia off her knuckles with the nutcracker.
"Only two out of 21,219—I think you ought to call it a long shot instead of a snap shot," I whispered, after I had dodged behind a sofa.
She went out of the room without saying a word, and I took out my pocketbook and looked at it wistfully.
CHAPTER VIIYOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT THE SERVANTS
When Peaches and I get tired of the Big Town—tired of its noises and hullabaloo; tired of being tagged by taxis as we cross a street; tired of watching grocers and butchers hoisting higher the highest cost of living—that's our cue to grab a choo-choo and breeze out to Uncle Peter Grant's farm and bungalow in the wilds of Westchester, which he calls Troolyrooral.
Just to even matters up Uncle Peter and his wife visit us from time to time in our amateur apartment in the Big Town.
Uncle Peter is a very stout old gentleman. When he squeezes into our little flat the walls act as if they were bow-legged.
Uncle Peter always goes through the folding doors sideways and every time he sits down the man in the apartment below us kicks because we move the piano so often.
Aunt Martha is Uncle Peter's wife and she weighs more and breathes oftener.
When the two of them visit our bird-cage at the same time the janitor has to go out and stand in front of the building with a view to catching it if it falls.
When we reached Troolyrooral we found that "Cousin" Elsie Schulz was also a visitor there.
"Cousin" Elsie is a sort of privileged character in the family, having lived with Aunt Martha for over twenty years as a sort of housekeeper.
They call her "Cousin Elsie" just to make it more difficult.
Three or four years ago Elsie married Gustave Bierbauer and quit her job.
"Cousin" Elsie believes that conversation was invented for her exclusive use, and the way she can grab a bundle of the English language and break it up is a caution.
Language is the same to Elsie as a syphon is to a highball—and that's a whole lot.
Two years after their marriage old Gustavestopped living so abruptly that the coroner had to sit on him.
The post mortem found out that Gustave had died from a rush of words to his brainpan.
The coroner also found, upon further examination, that all of these words had formerly belonged to Elsie, with the exception of a few which were once the property of Gustave's favorite bartender.
After Gustave's exit Aunt Martha tried to get Elsie back on her job, but the old Dutch had her eye on Herman Schulz, and finally married him.
So now every once in a while Elsie moseys over from Plainfield, N. J., where she liveswith Herman, and proceeds to sew a lot of pillow slips and things for Aunt Martha.
Yesterday morning, while Peaches and I were at breakfast, Elsie meandered in, bearing in her hand a wedding invitation which Herman had forwarded to her from Plainfield.
Being, as I say, a privileged character, she does pretty much as she likes around the bungalooza.
Elsie read the invitation: "Mr. und Mrs. Rudolph Ganderkurds request der honor of your presence at der marriage of deir daughter, Verbena, to Galahad Schmalzenberger, at der home of der bride's parents, Plainfield, N. J. March Sixteenth. R. S. V. P."
"Vell," said Elsie, "I know der Ganderkurdsand I know deir daughter, Verbena, und I know Galahad Schmalzenberger; he's a floorwalker in Bauerhaupt's grocery store, but I doan'd know vot it is dot R. S. V. P. yet!"
I gently kicked Peaches on the instep under the table, and said to Elsie, "Well, thatisa new one on me. Are you sure it isn't B. & O. or the C. R. R. of N. J.? I've heard of those two railroads in New Jersey, but I never heard of the R. S. V. P."
For the first time in her life since she's been able to grab a sentence between her teeth and shake the pronouns out of it Elsie was phazed.
She kept looking at the invitation and saying to herself, "R. S. V. P.! Vot is it? Iknow der honor of your presence; I know der bride's parents, but I don't know R. S. V. P."
All that day Elsie wandered through the house muttering to herself, "R. S. V. P.! Vot is it? Is it some secret between der bride und groom? R. S. V. P.! It ain'd my initials, because dey begin mit E, S. Vot is dot R. S. V. P.? Vot is it? Vot is it?"
That evening we were all at dinner when Elsie rushed in with a cry of joy. "I got it!" she said. "I haf untied der meaning of dot R. S. V. P. It means Real Silver Vedding Presents!"
I was just about to drink a glass of water, so I changed my mind and nearly choked to death.
Peaches tried to say something, which resulted in a gurgle in her throat, while Uncle Peter fell off his chair and landed on the cat, which had never done him any harm.
Elsie's interpretation of that wedding invitation is going to set Herman Schulz back several dollars, or I'm not a foot high.
And maybe they don't have their troubles at Troolyrooral with the servant problem.
It's one hard problem, that—and nobody seems to get the right answer.
One morning later on Peaches and I were out on the porch drinking in the glorious air and chatting with Hep Hardy, who had come out to spend Sunday with us, when Aunt Martha came bustling out followed by UnclePeter, who, in turn, was followed by Lizzie Joyce, their latest cook.
Lizzie wore a new lid, trimmed with prairie grass and field daisies, hanging like a shade over the left lamp; she had a grouchy looking grip in one hand and a green umbrella with black freckles in the other.
She was made up to catch the first train that sniffed into the station.
Aunt Martha whispered to us plaintively, "Lizzie has been here only two days and this makes the seventh time she has started for town."
Busy Lizzie took the center of the stage and scowled at her audience. "I'm takin' the nexttrain for town, Mem!" she announced, with considerable bitterness.
Uncle Peter made a brave effort to scowl back at her, but she flashed her lanterns at him and he fell back two paces to the rear.
"What is it this time, Lizzie?" inquired Aunt Martha.
Lizzie put the grouchy grip down, folded her arms, and said, "Oh, I have me grievances!"
Uncle Peter sidled up to Aunt Martha and said in a hoarse whisper, "My dear, this shows a lack of firmness on your part. Now, leave everything to me and let me settle this obstreperous servant once and for all!"
Uncle Peter crossed over and got in the limelight with Lizzie.
"It occurs to me," he began in polished accents, "that this is an occasion upon which I should publicly point out to you the error of your ways, and send you back to your humble station with a better knowledge of your status in this household."
"S'cat!" said Lizzie, and Uncle Peter began to fish for his next line.
"I want you to understand," he went on, "that I pay you your wages!"
"Sure, if you didn't," was Lizzie's come-back, "I'd land on you good and hard, that I would. What else are you here for, you fathead?"
"Fathead!" echoed Uncle Peter in astonishment.
"Peter, leave her to me," pleaded Aunt Martha.
But Uncle Peter rushed blindly on to destruction. "Elizabeth," he said, sternly, "in view of your most unrefined and unladylike language it behooves me to reprimand you severely. I will, therefore——"
Then Lizzie and the green umbrella struck a Casey-at-the-bat pose and cut in: "G'wan away from me with your dime-novel talk or I'll place the back of me unladylike hand on your jowls!"
"Peter!" warningly exclaimed the perturbed Aunt Martha.
"Yes, Martha; you're right," the old gentleman said, turning hastily. "I must hurry and finish my correspondence before the morning mail goes," and he faded away.
"It isn't an easy matter to get servants out here," Aunt Martha whispered to us; "I must humor her. Now, Lizzie, what's wrong?"
"You told me, Mem, that I should have aroom with a southern exposure," said the Queen of the Bungalow.
"And isn't the room as described?" inquired Aunt Martha.
"The room is all right, but I don't care for the exposure," said the Princess of Porkchops.
"Well, what's wrong?" insisted our patient auntie.
"Sure," said the Baroness of Bread-pudding, "the room is so exposed, Mem, that every breeze from the North Pole just nachully hikes in there and keeps me settin' up in bed all night shiverin' like I was shakin' dice for the drinks. When I want that kind of exercise I'll hire out as chambermaid in a cold-storage. I'm a cook, Mem, it's true, but I'mno relation to Doctor Cook, and I ain't eager to sleep in a room where even a Polar bear would be growlin' for a fur coat."
"Very well, Lizzie," said Aunt Martha, soothingly; "I'll have storm windows put on at once and extra quilts sent to the room, and a gas stove if you wish."
"All right, Mem," said the Countess of Cornbeef, removing the lid, "I'll stay; but keep that husband of yours with the woozy lingo out of the kitchen, because I'm a nervous woman—I am that!" and then the Duchess of Devilledkidneys got a strangle-hold on her green umbrella and ducked for the grub foundry.
Aunt Martha sighed and went in the house.
"Hep," I said; "this scene with Her Highness of Clamchowder ought to be an awful warning to you. No man should get married these days unless he's sure his wife can juggle the frying pan and take a fall out of an egg-beater. They've had eight cooks in eight days, and every time a new face comes in the kitchen the coal-scuttle screams with fright.
"You can see where they've worn a new trail across the lawn on the retreat to the depot.
"It's an awful thing, Hep! Our palates are weak from sampling different styles of mashed potatoes.
"We had one last week who answered roll-call when you yelled Phyllis.
"Isn't that a peach of a handle for a kitchen queen with a map like the Borough of The Bronx on a dark night?
"She came here well recommended—by herself. She said she knew how to cook backwards.
"We believed her after the first meal, because that's how she cooked it.
"Phyllis was a very inventive girl. She could cook anything on earth or in the waters underneath the earth, and she proved it by trying to mix tenpenny nails with the baked beans.
"When Phyllis found there was no shreddedoats in the house for breakfast she changed the cover of the wash tub into sawdust and sprinkled it with the whisk-broom, chopped fine.
"It wasn't a half bad breakfast food of the home-made kind, but every time I took a drink of water the sawdust used to float up in my throat and tickle me.
"The first and only day she was with us Phyllis squandered two dollars worth of eggs trying to make a lemon meringue pie.
"She tried to be artistic with this, but one of the eggs was old and nervous and it slipped.
"Uncle Peter asked Phyllis if she could cook some Hungarian goulash and Phyllis screamed, 'No; my parents have been Swedes all theirlives!' Then she ran him across the lawn with the carving knife.
"Aunt Martha went in the kitchen to ask what was for dinner and Phyllis got back at her, 'Im a woman, it is true, but I will show you that I can keep a secret!'
"When the meal came on the table we were compelled to keep the secret with her.
"It looked like Irish stew, tasted like clam chowder, and behaved like a bad boy.
"On the second day it suddenly occurred to Phyllis that she was working, so she handed in her resignation, handed Hank, the gardener, a jolt in his café department, handed out a lot of unnecessary talk, and left us flat.
"The next rebate we had in the kitchen wasa colored man named James Buchanan Pendergrast.
"James was all there is and carry four. He was one of the most careful cooks that ever made faces at the roast beef.
"The evening he arrived we intended to have shad roe for dinner and James informed us that that was where he lived.
"Eight o'clock came and no dinner. Then Aunt Martha went in the kitchen to convince him that we were human beings with appetites.
"She found Careful James counting the roe to see if the fish dealer had sent the right number.
"He was up to 2,196,493 and still had a half pound to go.
"James left that night followed by shouts of approval from all present.
"I'm telling you all this, Hep, just to prove that Fate is kind while it delays your wedding until some genius invents an automatic cook made of aluminum and electricity."
Hep laughed and shook his head.
"The servant problem won't delay my wedding," he chortled; "if there wasn't a cook left in the world we wouldn't care; we're going to be vegetarians because we're going to live in the Garden of Eden."
"Tush!" I snickered.
"Tush, yourself!" said Hep.
"Oh, tush, both of you," said Peaches; "John said that very thing to me three weeks before we were married."
"Sure I did," I went back, "and we're still in the Garden, aren't we? Of course, if you want to sub-let part of it and have Hep and his bride roaming moon-struck through your strawberry beds, that's up to you!"
"Well," said friend wife, "being alone in the Garden of Eden is all right, but after you've been there three or four years there's a mild excitement in hearing a strange voice, even if it is that of a Serpent!"
Close the door, Delia, I feel a draft.