this is the story of a wooing that went astray.
there are many such stories floating around, and they are all good, if they could only be told. but there is the trouble, for, like family skeletons, they are sunk so deep in the cellar or locked up so securely in the closet that there is no getting to them, even for a minute.
how these two met or where they met is of no material difference, and here is where a romantic touch might be introduced. the truth is that they came face to face with each other on the boardwalk at atlantic city. he had been up to old vienna while she had taken in the show on the pier. a dozen or more of those high steins of pilsner had made him a bit reckless, and that was his only excuse. she was lonely, and that was hers. it’s a great combination, like guncotton and a match. all right apart, but let them meet and the result is pyrotechnical. when they were twenty feet apart there was a sudden flash of lightning of the vivid brand they have on the jersey shore, followed by a crash of thunder heavy enough to make a cigar store indian step down and crawl under his pedestal. then a few drops of rain about the size of a quarter, and a general scurrying for shelter.
the man whistled for a covered rolling chair, and the girl with eyes shut and head down ran directly into his arms.
atlantic city is the place for sporty girls who play the game to the limit
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she recoiled like a rubber ball that has been thrown up against a brick wall, while he felt to see if his watch was still fast in the mooring at his vest.
“oh, i beg your pardon,” and she gathered up her skirts as she prepared for another flight.
“don’t mention it,” he answered with admiration, “but i think you could beat jeffries if you were trained down a bit.”
“sir!”
“now don’t sir me; it’s raining and that blanket of yours won’t stand water. i’ve an option on the only chair in sight. it’s yours; help yourself, and if you don’t mind i’ll go as far as my hotel. are you on the job?”
“i don’t think——” she began severely, when the lightning broke out again and interrupted her.
“you don’t have to think,” he said. “jump in and keep out of the wet. people don’t think at atlantic city; they get on the job quick,” and he motioned the walking delegate with the perambulator to move up.
“all right,” she said, resignedly.
“of course it’s all right, for you get home dry while i have a chance to meet a good fellow. now let’s introduce. my name is ben. there’s another part to it, but it don’t make any difference here. what’s yours?”
“you don’t lose any time, do you?”
“never was known to so far. come on, what is it?”
“bess,” she answered.
“bess; great; sounds like a sport. not hard to say and rhymes with ‘bless’ and ‘yes’ and a lot of other words. now, bess, you and i are going to have one little drink just to celebrate. you know the old saying—wet out and wet in. the wise gink who’s pushing
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this van is heading me back to where i came from, i see; old vienna. i wonder if he gets a commission? just because i like you, and because your hair matches my tie i’ll blow you to anything you like from a second-story stein up to a bottle—large or small, according to your capacity. how about it?”
“i suppose you think because you got me in this absurd wicker basket before i could call a policeman and have you arrested for insulting me that any proposition you make from now on will not be objected to. perhaps, because i made the fatal mistake of being alone on the walk at night, you, too, have made a mistake.”
“i never make mistakes, but this time i overlooked the fact that i am hungry. so we’ll get the large bottle and something to eat on the side and between drinks we’ll tell each other the story of our past lives, and we’ll make a bet on whose is the best.”
half an hour later they were like a couple of chums who had known each other for years, and she was calling him ben as if she had been raised with him.
that was not quite a year ago, and it is only introduced in order that the story might be told from the very beginning.
a thousand trifling things happen in life which often turn the tide or change the course of events. a man, because his watch is a few minutes late, misses a train which is wrecked and thus saves his life; again he goes down one street instead of another, for no reason that he knows of, and avoids a catastrophe or misses an opportunity; he goes here instead of there and something occurs which changes the course of his path from that point on to the grave. call it fate if you like,
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but whatever it is it is inevitable and inexorable, and no human will has been found that is strong enough to resist it. it is like the call of “hands up” coming from the desperado with a revolver. there is no alternative. in some cases it is impulse, a seventh sense, or pure luck—good or bad—according to results, or even intuition. the wise man says that what is to be will be and trails along in contentment. others fight it out and come forth beaten in the end.
the two of this story came back to new york hopelessly in love with each other, and at that time, so far as i know, it wasn’t the commercial love of the twentieth century, ready to switch and change as soon as the sun went under the first cloud. they met two, three and four times a week, first in one place and then in another, and they knocked about town like a pair of happy-go-lucky bohemians with the rent paid a year in advance.
“some day,” he said to her once, “when i am quite free to do as i like i’m going to marry you, and then all of this running to cover like a pair of rabbits chased by a brown ferret that you can’t see will stop.”
“how do you know that i would marry you even if you wanted it?” she asked.
“we’ll argue that point when the time comes,” was the answer.
“now that we’ve known each other for so long a time—at least it seems long to me—i’ve a confession to make to you. i ought to have told you before, but it isn’t too late now.”
“save your confession as i’m saving mine,” he said. “i never knew these past life stories to do any good, for both men and women make mistakes, and they
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ought to do with them as the doctors do with their failures—bury them.”
“but we are doing wrong now.”
“the boy up the farmer’s tree filling his pocket with apples is happy until he is caught. my motto is to get as many apples as you can until you hear the farmer coming and then beat it while you have the wind with you. it doesn’t require as much nerve as you think, and any time the game isn’t worth it quit. the beaten man in a fight, if he is game, always gets as much applause as the victor and sometimes a great deal more. i have seen the time when it was better to lose than to win, strange as that may seem. i don’t believe in figuring on what is to be years from now because i may be dead. there is no to-morrow in life—it is all to-day. if battles have been won, cities destroyed, empires established and colossal fortunes swept away in an hour what chance has a man—a mere atom on the earth—to speculate in futures? the typhoid germ upon an oyster, the invisible microbe of consumption eaten or breathed in with a thousand other death-dealing mites, can kill him as surely as a thunderbolt or a drop of cyanide of potassium. upon your hands and your face at this moment are the bacteria of lockjaw only waiting for a scratch or a wound of some kind to enter your veins. yet you do not worry about that. you see you have me talking about things i do not like and it will take at least another pint to get the taste out of my mouth. accept my advice, if the sun is shining for you now don’t fear the coming night.”
through all the winter he never knew where she lived or how she lived and he didn’t care, and that was
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because he was a philosopher, and she knew as little about him as he did about her. a future meeting was always arranged upon the heels of the previous one. her name was bess and his was ben and that was sufficient.
very queer, of course, and almost unbelievable, but true nevertheless.
and all the while the match was getting nearer to the guncotton and neither knew it. playing with fire had come to be such a habit with these two that they didn’t fear the flames.
it was at a nice little afternoon luncheon that she became first serious and then confidential. they had reached the coffee stage—the proper time to put your elbows on the table and talk—when she said:
“ben, i want $5,000.”
at that particular moment he was lighting a cigarette and he didn’t look up for a full minute, which is a very long while if you only know the real value of time.
“what for?” he asked, finally.
“i am married, you know. i mean you don’t know it, but i’m telling you now, and i want to get a divorce. i have been collecting evidence and i have all i want, but i shall have to get a lawyer, and i shall also have to live until the case is disposed of.”
“why didn’t you consult me?”
“why should i until i was ready?”
“i’m a lawyer.”
“would you take the case?”
“no, but i could advise you.”
so he did, and being a very smart lawyer instead of giving her a check for the money she wanted he gave
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her what in his opinion was $5,000 worth of advice. you see, the substance of his love of the fall had fallen away to a shadow, and hard-headed business men don’t invest in shadows or even pay money to build a monument over a sentiment that is either dead or dying. hearts are rarely trumps; spades have the call to-day.
“i’m going ahead anyhow,” she went on, “and i suppose when i am free that even your memory will suffer from an attack of dry rot, and that you’ll forget everything you have ever said to me—or deny it, which amounts to the same thing in the end.”
so the next day she told her story to a lawyer, not the story of ben and the dinners, but the tales of the man to whom she was married, and when she produced certain dates and facts she was told she had the clearest kind of a clear case and that it would go through with bells on, with hubby paying the shot.
the complaint was drawn up and the papers served; and here comes the great part of this recital.
just one week later a clean-cut, well-built young business man, of about 35, walked into ben’s office and asked for a consultation.
“you have been recommended to me,” he began, “by a business friend of mine. i have been sued for divorce by my wife. my morals are none too good, but neither are hers. will you take the case and defend me?”
“yes,” said ben, “i’ll take it,” and he called a stenographer. “dictate your story to her and then see me to-morrow, when i will have the papers drawn up. if your counter charges amount to anything at all we can beat her—that is, if you want to beat her. as i understand
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it you don’t want her to get a divorce from you?”
“that’s it exactly. it isn’t that i care a rap, but i don’t care to be made a scapegoat, and i think when she knows what kind of an answer i have she’ll drop the whole case and take to the woods, which will suit me down to the ground.”
at 11 o’clock ben saw the transcribed notes of the amanuensis and he hadn’t read more than ten lines when he jumped from his chair as though it had suddenly become red-hot.
“miss bates,” he called sharply, “bring me your note book.”
in she came and handed it to him.
“you’ll say nothing about this?”
“no, sir,” but there was the suggestion of a smile around the corners of her mouth.
he thrust it in his pocket and in a minute was out of the door.
there was a little luncheon date on with bess for 12 o’clock, but he couldn’t wait. he was at the appointed place a full hour before the time, and he sat at the table glaring at the door. exactly on the stroke of the hour she came in smiling.
“why, ben, what’s the matter? you look as though you had been struck by a blizzard.”
“i have. read that,” and he handed two typewritten sheets to her. “you’ll have to drop that case of yours, and drop it quick, too. your husband had the nerve to retain me to defend him; and in his counter charges he names me as your co-respondent, and i’m damned if he hasn’t got every move we ever made pat and to the minute. he’s been on to everything.”
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he looked up suddenly and a look of suspicion came over his face.
“what is this, a job? have you two been working me?”
“you contemptible thing,” she whispered, “you have the mind of a street sweeper. how dare you talk to me like that after all our——”
two tears came into her eyes.
“if i were a man i would fight you and you wouldn’t dare to fight back. you’d run. do you hear that—you’d run away, because you are a coward. i could make you run away now if i wanted, because you are afraid.”
then she turned and walked out of the place without even so much as looking behind her, and the man was left with a lot of typewritten sheets clutched in one hand and a stenographer’s note book in the other.
there was never any suit, but if you happen to new york any day during the winter months i’ll show you this couple—bess who made a little mistake and stepped out to where the daisies grow once or twice—and her husband, who won because he was willing to wait.
it sounds like a romance, i know, but it’s all true, every word of it, for the little stenographer told me the most of it.
