The Wit and Humor of America
Chapter 142 : "The very thing!""If he misunderstood it--I mean if he thought it reall

"The very thing!"

"If he misunderstood it--I mean if he thought it really came from Eleanor--there couldn't be any fuss about it afterward, could there?"

"And, of course, you'll send the official invitation from Mrs.

Matthewman besides?"

"For Sat.u.r.day?"

"Yes, Sat.u.r.day!"

"And _you'll_ come?"

"Just watch me!"

"Ezra, are you happy?"

"That depends on Jones."

"Oh, isn't it exciting?"

"I have the ring in my pocket--"

"But touch wood, won't you?"

"Freddy?"

"Yes--"

"What's the matter with getting some forget-me-nots and mailing them to Jones in an envelope?"

"All right, I'll attend to it. Eighteen ninety-two Eighth Avenue, isn't it?"

"Be sure it _is_ forget-me-nots, you know. Don't mix up the language of flowers, and send him one that says: 'I'm off with a handsomer man,' or, 'You needn't come round any more!'"

"Oh, Ezra, Eleanor is really getting quite worked up!"

"So am I!"

"Wouldn't it be perfectly splendid if--Switch off quick, here's aunt coming!"

"Mayn't I even say I love you?"

"I daren't say it back, Ezra--she's calling."

"But _do_ you?"

"Yes, unfortunately--"

"Why unfortun--?"

Buzz-buzz-swizzleum-bux-bux!--Aunt had cut us off. However, short as my talk with Freddy had been, it brightened my whole day.

Late the same afternoon I went back to Doctor Jones. I was prepared to find him uplifted, but I hadn't counted on his being maudlin. The fellow was drunk, positively drunk--with happiness. His tongue ran on like a mill-stream. I had to sit down and have the whole Pullman-car episode inflicted on me a second time. I was shown the receipt-slip. I was shown the telegram from Eleanor. I was shown with a whoop the forget-me-nots!

Then he was going on Sat.u.r.day? I asked. He said he guessed it would take an earthquake to keep him away, and a pretty big earthquake, too!... Oh, it was a great moment, and all the greater because I was tremendously worked up, too. I saw Freddy floating before me, my sweet, girlish, darling Freddy, holding out her arms ... while Jones ga.s.sed and ga.s.sed and ga.s.sed....

I left him taking phenacetin for his headache.

III

The house-party had grown a little larger than was originally intended.

On Sat.u.r.day night we sat down twelve to dinner. Doctor Jones and I shared a room together, and I must say whatever misgivings I might have had about him wore away very quickly on closer acquaintance. In the first place he looked well in evening dress, carrying himself with a sort of shy, kind air that became him immensely. At table he developed the greatest of conversational gifts--that of the appreciative and intelligent listener. I heard one of the guests asking Eleanor who was that charming young man. Freddy and I hugged each other (I mean metaphorically, of course) and gloried in his success. In the presence of an admirer (such is the mystery of women) Eleanor instantly got fifteen points better looking, and you wouldn't have known her for the same girl. Freddy thought it was the two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar gown she wore, but I could see it was deeper than that. She was thawing in the suns.h.i.+ne of love, and I'll do Doctor Jones the justice to say that he didn't hide his affection under a bushel. It was generous enough for everybody to bask in, and in his pell-mell ardor he took us all to his bosom. The women loved him for it, and entered into a tacit conspiracy to gain him the right-of-way to wherever Eleanor was to be found. In fact, he followed her about like a dog, and she could scarcely move without stepping on him.

Sunday was even better. One of the housemaids drank some wood-alcohol by mistake for vichy water, and the resulting uproar redounded to Jones'

coolness, skill and despatch. He dominated the situation and--well, I won't describe it, this not being a medical work, and the reader probably being a good guesser. Mrs. Matthewman remarked significantly that it must be nice to be the wife of a medical man--one would always have the safe feeling of a doctor at hand in case anything happened at night! Eleanor said it was a beautiful profession that had for its object the alleviation of human pain. Freddy jealously tried to get in a good word for boxers, but n.o.body would listen to her except me. It was all Jones, Jones, Jones, and the triumphs of modern medicine. Altogether he sailed through that whole day with flying colors, first with the housemaid, and then afterward at church, where he was the only one that knew what Sunday after Epiphany it was. He made it plainer than ever that he was a model young man and a pattern. Mrs. Matthewman compared him to her departed husband, and talked about old-fas.h.i.+oned courtesy and the splendid men of her youth. Everybody fell over everybody else to praise him. It was a regular Jones boom. People began to write down his address, and ask him if he'd be free Thursday, or what about Friday, and started to book seats in advance.

That evening, as I was was.h.i.+ng my hands before dinner and cheerfully whistling _Hiawatha_, I became conscious that Jones was lolling back on a sofa at the dark end of the room. What particularly arrested my attention was a groan--preceded by a pack of heartrending sighs. It worried me--when everything seemed to be going so well. He had every right to be whistling _Hiawatha_, too.

"What's the matter, Jones?" said I.

He keeled over on the sofa, and groaned louder than ever.

"It isn't possible--that she's refused you?" I exclaimed. He muttered something about his mother.

"Well, what about your mother?" I said.

"Westoby," he returned, "I guess I was the worst kind of fool ever to put my foot into this house."

That was nice news, wasn't it? Just as I was settling in my head to buy that Seventy-second Street place, and alter the bas.e.m.e.nt into a garage!

"You see, old man, my mother would never consent to my marrying Eleanor.

I'm in the position of having to choose between her and the woman I love. And I owe so much to my mother, Westoby. She stinted herself for years to get me through college; she hardly had enough to eat; she...."

Then he groaned a lot more.

"I can't think that your mother--a mother like yours, Jones--would consent to stand between you and your lifelong happiness. It's morbid--that's what I call it--morbid, just to dream of such a thing."

"There's Bertha," he quavered.

"Great Scott, and who's Bertha?"

"The girl my mother chose for me two years ago--Bertha Mc.n.u.tt, you know.

She'd really prefer me not to marry at all, but if I must--it's Bertha, Westoby--Bertha or nothing!"

"It's too late to say that now, old fellow."

"It's not too late for me to go home this very night."

"Well, Jones," I broke out, "I can't think you'd do such a caddish thing as that. Think it over for a minute. You come down here; you sweep that unfortunate girl off her feet; you make love to her with the fury of a stage villain; you force her to betray her very evident partiality for you--and then you have the effrontery to say: 'Good-by. I'm off.'"