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Page 77
"Yes," said I. "I hope so. And now to come down to brass tacks." I
thought that rather a vernacularism, if there is such a word, as soon
as I had said it; but I didn't stop to apologize. "You know, of
course, that I love you, and that I have been in that idiotic state
for a long time. I don't want any more foolish
ness about it--that is, I mean I want an answer from you right now.
Will you marry me or not? Hold the wire, please. Keep out, Central.
Hello, hello! Will you, or will you not.?"
That was just the uppercut for Reddy Burns' chin. The answer came
back:
"Why, Phil, dear, of course I will! I didn't know that you--that is,
you never said--oh, come up to the house, please--I can't say what I
want to over the 'phone. You are so importunate. But please come up
to the house, won't you?"
Would I?
I rang the bell of the Telfair house violently. Some sort of a human
came to the door and shooed me into the drawing-room.
"Oh, well," said I to myself, looking at the ceiling, "any one can
learn from any one. That was a pretty good philosophy of Mack's,
anyhow. He didn't take advantage of his experience, but I get the
benefit of it. If you want to get into the professional class, you've
got to--"
I stopped thinking then. Some one was coming down the stairs. My
knees began to shake. I knew then how Mack had felt when a
professional began to climb over the ropes.
I looked around foolishly for a door or a window by which I might
escape. If it had been any other girl approaching, I mightn't have--
But just then the door opened, and Bess, Mildred's younger sister,
came in. I'd never seen her look so much like a glorified angel. She
walked straight tip to me, and--and--I'd never noticed before what
perfectly wonderful eyes and hair Elizabeth Telfair had.
"Phil," she said, in the Telfair, sweet, thrilling tones, "why didn't
you tell me about it before? I thought it was sister you wanted all
the time, until you telephoned to me a few minutes ago!"
I suppose Mack and I always will be hopeless amateurs. But, as the
thing has turned out in my case, I'm mighty glad of it.
BEST-SELLER
I
One day last summer I went to Pittsburgh--well, I had to go there on
business.
My chair-car was profitably well filled with people of the kind one
usually sees on chair-cars. Most of them were ladies in brown-silk
dresses cut with square yokes, with lace insertion, and dotted veils,
who refused to have the windows raised. Then there was the usual
number of men who looked as if they might be in almost any business
and going almost anywhere. Some students of human nature can look at
a man in a Pullman and tell you where he is from, his occupation and
his stations in life, both flag and social; but I never could. The
only way I can correctly judge a fellow-traveller is when the train is
held up by robbers, or when he reaches at the same time I do for the
last towel in the dressing-room of the sleeper.
The porter came and brushed the collection of soot on the window-sill
off to the left knee of my trousers. I removed it with an air of
apology. The temperature was eighty-eight. One of the dotted-veiled
ladies demanded the closing of two more ventilators, and spoke loudly
of Interlaken. I leaned back idly in chair No. 7, and looked with
the tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head just
visible above the back of No. 9.
Suddenly No. 9 hurled a book to the floor between his chair and the
window, and, looking, I saw that it was The Rose-Lady and Trevelyan,
one of the best-selling novels of the present day. And then the
critic or Philistine, whichever he was, veered his chair toward the
window, and I knew him at once for John A. Pescud, of Pittsburgh,
travelling salesman for a plate-glass company--an old acquaintance
whom I had not seen in two years.
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