Ade's Fables Part 19

Suddenly he remembered that he was engaged to Elphye and he wondered if she had forgotten.

So many things can happen in a Great City within two weeks.

He told Nurse about Elphye. Annie did not seem madly interested, but she wrote a Note to the Sazerack Apartment Building and notified the Seraphine that her prospective Producer was still extant and would be willing to renew acquaintance if she could spare an hour or two from her Dancing.

Elphye came out two days later made up as a Princess in the Christmas Pantomime and diffusing pleasant Odors in all directions.

She sat down alongside of Annie and immediately she was shown up and went back to the Minors.

Her Second-Reader Conversation, complicated with the phoney Boston sound of "A" as in "Squash," did not improve her General Average.

Bob suddenly realized that in getting rid of the Bronxes and the Nicotine and various other Toxins, he also had lost his appet.i.te for Elphye.

But he was Game and willing to go through on his own Proposition.

He sent Nurse for a gla.s.s of Water and then begged his Fiancee to smuggle in a Newspaper so he could find out the name of his getting-off Station.

Next day she brought the Market Page in her wonderful jewel-crusted Bag.

Bob took one Look and crawled under the Covers.

The Market had gone Blooey.

Bucket Preferred was down in the Subway, bleeding from a dozen Wounds.

The Whole List was on the Blinkety Fritz.

"Courage, Dearie," said Bob, taking Elphye by the Rings. "Your little Playmate is erased from the map."

Elphye upset two Rolling Chairs and one Interne getting from the Convalescent Department to the open Air.

Annie found the poor Bankrupt much improved as to Pulse and Temperature.

He told her the whole Story of how his Lady Fair had canned him because he was no longer a Live One.

She held his hand and pushed back his Locks and told him that any Girl with a Heart would stick closer than ever to her Selection when he was under the Rollers.

Just then a Messenger from McCusick came in and showed Bob that by going Short and standing pat he was $1,800,000 to the Desirable.

After that, Bob was known up and down the Street as The Wizard.

Annabelle, remembering how they had got to her Father, made him cut out the Margins and put the whole Chunk into listed Securities and Real Estate.

He wanted to stick around and parlee up to a Billion, but she raised a most emphatic Nixey.

He was so used to taking orders from her as a Trained Nurse that he cut out speculating and played Safe.

The whole game was punk for months after, so every one said he had been a Wise Mug for backing away.

The Missus allows him a light one (mostly Vermouth) before Dinner each evening and has taught him a private Signal which means that she is ready to duck and go Home.

At present they are in Paris, where she is working to get the same hilarious _Tout Ensemble_ formerly exhibited by Elphye, the Ex-Empress of the White Light Reservation.

The latter went to see a Lawyer when she learned that she had been tricked out of her Happiness.

Unfortunately for her, she had nothing on Robert, thanks to his native shrewdness and Mr. Bell, who invented the Telephone.

She is now playing Utility Parts in a Stock Company in Pennsylvania.

The Jewels pelted at her by Bob are much admired by the Gallery.

MORAL: The City holds no Peril for those who cherish Lucky Ideals.

THE NEW FABLE OF SUSAN AND THE DAUGHTER AND THE GRANDDAUGHTER, AND THEN SOMETHING REALLY GRAND

Once there was a full-blown Wild Peach, registered in the Family Bible as Susan Mahaly.

Her Pap divided his time between collecting at a Toll-Gate and defending the Military Reputation of Andy Jackson.

The family dwelt in what was then regarded by Cambridge, Ma.s.s., as the Twilight Zone of Semi-Culture, viz., Swigget County, Pennsylvania.

Susan wore Linsey-Woolsey from Monday to Sat.u.r.day. She never had tampered with her Venus de Milo Topography and she did not even suspect that Women had Nerves.

When she was seventeen she had a Fore-Arm like a Member of the Turnverein.

She knew how to Card and Weave and Dye. Also she could make Loose Soap in a kettle out in the Open Air.

Susan never fell down on her Salt-Rising Bread. Her Apple b.u.t.ter was always A1.

It was commonly agreed that she would make some Man a good Housekeeper, for she was never sickly and could stay on her Feet sixteen hours at a Stretch.

Already she was beginning to look down the Pike for a regular Fellow.

In the year 1840, the La.s.s of seventeen who failed to get her Hooks on some roaming specimen of the Opposite Gender was in danger of being whispered about as an Old Maid. Celibacy was listed with Arson and Manslaughter.

Rufus was destined to be an Early Victorian Rummy, but he could lift a Saw-Log, and he would stand without being hitched, so Susan nailed him the third time he came snooping around the Toll-Gate.

Rufus did not have a Window to hoist or a Fence to lean on. But there is no Poverty in any Pocket of the Universe until Wealth arrives and begins to get Luggy.

Susan thought she was playing in rare Luck to snare a Six-Footer who owned a good Squirrel Rifle and could out-wrastle all Comers.

The Hills of Pennsylvania were becoming congested, with Neighbors not more than two or three miles apart, so Rufus and his Bride decided to hit a New Trail into the Dark Timber and grow up with the Boundless West.

Relatives of the Young Couple staked them to a team of Pelters, a Muley Cow, a Bird Dog of dubious Ancestry, an Axe and a Skillet, and started them over the Divide toward the perilous Frontier, away out yender in Illinoy.

It was a Hard Life. As they trundled slowly over the rotten Roads, toward the Land of Promise, they had to subsist largely on Venison, Prairie Chicken, Quail, Black Ba.s.s, Berries, and Wild Honey. They carried their own Coffee.