You Should Worry Says John Henry Part 7

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 b.u.t.ting 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 yesterday to 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! You will be minus the money while I will have the price!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Gonsalvo trembles with the pa.s.sion 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 VI

YOU 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 was tough 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 slushy little s...o...b..nk representing nearly-the-North-pole.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 b.u.mped 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 appet.i.te, 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 would get 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.