Delphi complete works of.., p.273
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 273
“Cuckoo! my little peacherino, and how is she to-night? I wish she was right here, yum, yum! I got her tootsie weenie letter this morning. I hustled to the post office so fast to get it I nearly broke my slats. And so it really longs for me, does she? and did you really mean it? Well, you certainly look like a piece of chocolate to me! In fact, you’re some bird! You’re my baby all right,” — and so forth for three pages. After which, the professor turns back to work on his essay— “The Deterioration of the English Language Among the Colored Races of Africa.”
III
TRULY RURAL
Passionate Love Letter from Mr. Ephraim Cloverseed, Arcadia Post Office, Vermont, to Miss Nettie Singer, also of Arcadia, but at present on the cash in the Home Restaurant, 7860 Sixth Avenue, New York:
“Dear Nettie:
“There was a sharp frost last night which may do considerable harm to the fall wheat. Till last Tuesday there had not been no frost that you wouldn’t have noticed any. Some think we are in for a hard winter. Some think if it clears off a bit between this and New Year’s it may not be but some don’t. I seen a couple of crows in the pasture yesterday but you can’t always bank on that. I’ve been troubled again with my toe. But my rheumatism seems a whole lot better from that last stuff. My left leg has been pretty stiff again but the liniment has done my right arms good. Well, I will now close,
“Ephraim.”
IV
HYDRAULIC LOVE
Letter from Mr. Harry P. Smith, hydraulic engineer and surveyor, writing to Miss Georgia Sims, from Red Gulch Creek in the wilds of New Ontario. Everybody knows that Harry has been just crazy over Georgia for three years.
“Dear Georgia:
“We got in here through the bush yesterday and it certainly is a heck of a place to try to run a sight line in. The rock is mostly basaltic trap, but there are faults in it here and there that have been filled with alluvial deposit. It would be pretty hard to give you an estimate of the probable mineral content. But I should say you would have a fair chance of striking gas here if you went deep enough. But your overhead would be a whopper. Well, Georgia, I must now close.
“Harry.”
THE ANSWERS THEY GOT
The answer received by Mr. Ardent Heartful, Anno Domini, 1828:
“Sir Joshua and Lady Blushanburn present their compliments to Mr. Ardent Heartful and desire to thank him for the fish which Mr. Heartful has had the kindness to forward to their daughter and which they have greatly enjoyed. Sir Joshua and Lady Blushanburn will be pleased if Mr. Heartful will present himself in person for such further conversation in regard to this fish as connects it with his future intentions.”
WHAT THE PROFESSOR GOT
The answer from Miss Maisie Beatit of the Follies-in-Transit Company, Memphis, Tenn.:
“My dear Professor:
“It was with the most agreeable feelings of gratification that I received your letter this morning.
“The sentiments which you express and the very evident manifestation thus conveyed of your affection towards myself fill me, sir, with the most lively satisfaction. . . .” [After which Maisie got tired of copying word after word of the Complete Letter-Writer and so she just added in her own style,]
“Ain’t you the Kidder? Our next jump is Kansas City.
“Maisie.”
WOMANLY EPISTLE SENT FROM POSTAL STATION B-28, NEW YORK, TO ARCADIA P. O., VERMONT
“Dear Ephraim:
“I was glad to get your letter. I was sorry to hear there had been so much frost. I was glad to hear there are still crows in the bush. I was sorry to hear your toe is no better. I was glad to hear your rheumatism is some better. I am glad your leg is nicely. I must now close.
“Nettie.”
THE ANSWER FROM MISS GEORGIA SIMS, BLOOR STREET, TORONTO
She didn’t answer.
Little query for the reader just at the end. Which of these various couples will get married first and stay married longest? Quite right. You guessed it immediately. There’s no doubt about it, to persons of judgment in such things.
The Golfomaniac
WE RIDE IN and out pretty often together, he and I, on a suburban train.
That’s how I came to talk to him. “Fine morning,” I said as I sat down beside him yesterday and opened a newspaper.
“Great!” he answered, “the grass is drying out fast now and the greens will soon be all right to play.”
“Yes,” I said, “the sun is getting higher and the days are decidedly lengthening.”
“For the matter of that,” said my friend, “a man could begin to play at six in the morning easily. In fact, I’ve often wondered that there’s so little golf played before breakfast. We happened to be talking about golf, a few of us last night — I don’t know how it came up — and we were saying that it seems a pity that some of the best part of the day, say, from five o’clock to seven-thirty, is never used.”
“That’s true,” I answered, and then, to shift the subject, I said, looking out of the window:
“It’s a pretty bit of country just here, isn’t it?”
“It is,” he replied, “but it seems a shame they make no use of it — just a few market gardens and things like that. Why, I noticed along here acres and acres of just glass — some kind of houses for plants or something — and whole fields full of lettuce and things like that. It’s a pity they don’t make something of it. I was remarking only the other day as I came along in the train with a friend of mine, that you could easily lay out an eighteen-hole course anywhere here.”
“Could you?” I said.
“Oh, yes. This ground, you know, is an excellent light soil to shovel up into bunkers. You could drive some big ditches through it and make one or two deep holes — the kind they have on some of the French links. In fact, improve it to any extent.”
I glanced at my morning paper. “I see,” I said, “that it is again rumored that Lloyd George is at last definitely to retire.”
“Funny thing about Lloyd George,” answered my friend. “He never played, you know; most extraordinary thing — don’t you think? — for a man in his position. Balfour, of course, was very different: I remember when I was over in Scotland last summer I had the honor of going around the course at Dumfries just after Lord Balfour. Pretty interesting experience, don’t you think?”
“Were you over on business?” I asked.
“No, not exactly. I went to get a golf ball, a particular golf ball. Of course, I didn’t go merely for that. I wanted to get a mashie as well. The only way, you know, to get just what you want is to go to Scotland for it.”
“Did you see much of Scotland?”
“I saw it all. I was on the links at St. Andrews and I visited the Loch Lomond course and the course at Inverness. In fact, I saw everything.”
“It’s an interesting country, isn’t it, historically?”
“It certainly is. Do you know they have played there for over five hundred years! Think of it! They showed me at Loch Lomond the place where they said Robert the Bruce played the Red Douglas (I think that was the other party — at any rate, Bruce was one of them), and I saw where Bonnie Prince Charlie disguised himself as a caddie when the Duke of Cumberland’s soldiers were looking for him. Oh, it’s a wonderful country historically.”
After that I let a silence intervene so as to get a new start. Then I looked up again from my newspaper.
“Look at this,” I said, pointing to a headline, United States Navy Ordered Again to Nicaragua. “Looks like more trouble, doesn’t it?”
“Did you see in the paper a while back,” said my companion, “that the United States Navy Department is now making golf compulsory at the training school at Annapolis? That’s progressive, isn’t it? I suppose it will have to mean shorter cruises at sea; in fact, probably lessen the use of the navy for sea purposes. But it will raise the standard.”
“I suppose so,” I answered. “Did you read about this extraordinary murder case on Long Island?”
“No,” he said. “I never read murder cases. They don’t interest me. In fact, I think this whole continent is getting over-preoccupied with them—”
“Yes, but this case had such odd features—”
“Oh, they all have,” he replied, with an air of weariness. “Each one is just boomed by the papers to make a sensation—”
“I know, but in this case it seems that the man was killed with a blow from a golf club.”
“What’s that? Eh, what’s that? Killed him with a blow from a golf club!!”
“Yes, some kind of club—”
“I wonder if it was an iron — let me see the paper — though, for the matter of that, I imagine that a blow with even a wooden driver, let alone one of the steel-handled drivers — where does it say it? — pshaw, it only just says ‘a blow with golf club.’ It’s a pity the papers don’t write these things up with more detail, isn’t it? But perhaps it will be better in the afternoon paper. . . .”
“Have you played golf much?” I inquired. I saw it was no use to talk of anything else.
“No,” answered my companion, “I am sorry to say I haven’t. You see, I began late. I’ve only played twenty years, twenty-one if you count the year that’s beginning in May. I don’t know what I was doing. I wasted about half my life. In fact, it wasn’t till I was well over thirty that I caught on to the game. I suppose a lot of us look back over our lives that way and realize what we have lost.”
“And even as it is,” he continued, “I don’t get much chance to play. At the best I can only manage about four afternoons a week, though of course I get most of Saturday and all Sunday. I get my holiday in the summer, but it’s only a month, and that’s nothing. In the winter I manage to take a run South for a game once or twice and perhaps a little swack at it around Easter, but only a week at a time. I’m too busy — that’s the plain truth of it.” He sighed. “It’s hard to leave the office before two,” he said. “Something always turns up.”
And after that he went on to tell me something of the technique of the game, illustrate it with a golf ball on the seat of the car, and the peculiar mental poise needed for driving, and the neat, quick action of the wrist (he showed me how it worked) that is needed to undercut a ball so that it flies straight up in the air. He explained to me how you can do practically anything with a golf ball, provided that you keep your mind absolutely poised and your eye in shape, and your body a trained machine. It appears that even Bobby Jones of Atlanta and people like that fall short very often from the high standard set up by my golfing friend in the suburban car.
So, later in the day, meeting someone in my club who was a person of authority on such things, I made inquiry about my friend. “I rode into town with Llewellyn Smith,” I said. “I think he belongs to your golf club. He’s a great player, isn’t he?”
“A great player!” laughed the expert. “Llewellyn Smith? Why, he can hardly hit a ball! And anyway, he’s only played about twenty years!”
Gertrude the Governess: or, Simple Seventeen. Synopsis of Previous Chapters:. There are no Previous Chapters.
IT WAS A wild and stormy night on the West Coast of Scotland. This, however, is immaterial to the present story, as the scene is not laid in the West of Scotland. For the matter of that the weather was just as bad on the East Coast of Ireland.
But the scene of this narrative is laid in the South of England and takes place in and around Knotacentinum Towers (pronounced as if written Nosham Taws), the seat of Lord Knotacent (pronounced as if written Nosh).
But it is not necessary to pronounce either of these names in reading them.
Nosham Taws was a typical English home. The main part of the house was an Elizabethan structure of warm red brick, while the elder portion, of which the Earl was inordinately proud, still showed the outlines of a Norman Keep, to which had been added a Lancastrian Jail and a Plantagenet Orphan Asylum. From the house in all directions stretched magnificent woodland and park with oaks and elms of immemorial antiquity, while nearer the house stood raspberry bushes and geranium plants which had been set out by the Crusaders.
About the grand old mansion the air was loud with the chirping of thrushes, the cawing of partridges and the clear sweet note of the rook, while deer, antelope and other quadrupeds strutted about the lawn so tame as to eat off the sun-dial. In fact, the place was a regular menagerie.
From the house downwards through the park stretched a beautiful broad avenue laid out by Henry VII.
Lord Nosh stood upon the hearthrug of the library. Trained diplomat and statesman as he was, his stern aristocratic face was upside down with fury.
“Boy,” he said, “you shall marry this girl or I disinherit you. You are no son of mine.”
Young Lord Ronald, erect before him, flung back a glance as defiant as his own.
“I defy you,” he said. “Henceforth you are no father of mine. I will get another. I will marry none but a woman I can love. This girl that we have never seen—”
“Fool,” said the Earl, “would you throw aside our estate and name of a thousand years? The girl, I am told, is beautiful; her aunt is willing; they are French; pah! they understand such things in France.”
“But your reason—”
“I give no reason,” said the Earl. “Listen, Ronald, I give one month. For that time you remain here. If at the end of it you refuse me, I cut you off with a shilling.”
Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.
As the door of the library closed upon Ronald the Earl sank into a chair. His face changed. It was no longer that of the haughty nobleman, but of the hunted criminal. “He must marry the girl,” he muttered. “Soon she will know all. Tutchemoff has escaped from Siberia. He knows and will tell. The whole of the mines pass to her, this property with it, and I — but enough.” He rose, walked to the sideboard, drained a dipper full of gin and bitters, and became again a high-bred English gentleman.
It was at this moment that a high dogcart, driven by a groom in the livery of Earl Nosh, might have been seen entering the avenue of Nosham Taws. Beside him sat a young girl, scarce more than a child, in fact, not nearly so big as the groom.
The apple-pie hat which she wore, surmounted with black willow plumes, concealed from view a face so face-like in its appearance as to be positively facial.
It was — need we say it — Gertrude the Governess, who was this day to enter upon her duties at Nosham Taws.
At the same time that the dogcart entered the avenue at one end there might have been seen riding down it from the other a tall young man, whose long, aristocratic face proclaimed his birth and who was mounted upon a horse with a face even longer than his own.
And who is this tall young man who draws nearer to Gertrude with every revolution of the horse? Ah, who, indeed? Ah, who, who? I wonder if any of my readers could guess that this was none other than Lord Ronald.
The two were destined to meet. Nearer and nearer they came. And then still nearer. Then for one brief moment they met. As they passed Gertrude raised her head and directed towards the young nobleman two eyes so eye-like in their expression as to be absolutely circular, while Lord Ronald directed towards the occupant of the dogcart a gaze so gazelike that nothing but a gazelle, or a gas-pipe, could have emulated its intensity.
Was this the dawn of love? Wait and see. Do not spoil the story.
Let us speak of Gertrude, Gertrude De Mongmorenci McFiggin had known neither father nor mother. They had both died years before she was born. Of her mother she knew nothing, save that she was French, was extremely beautiful, and that all her ancestors and even her business acquaintances had perished in the Revolution.
Yet Gertrude cherished the memory of her parents. On her breast the girl wore a locket in which was enshrined a miniature of her mother, while down her neck inside at the back hung a daguerreotype of her father. She carried a portrait of her grandmother up her sleeve and had pictures of her cousins tucked inside her boot, while beneath her — but enough, quite enough.
Of her father Gertrude knew even less. That he was a high-born English gentleman who had lived as a wanderer in many lands, this was all she knew. His only legacy to Gertrude had been a Russian grammar, a Roumanian phrase-book, a theodolite, and a work on mining engineering.
From her earliest infancy Gertrude had been brought up by her aunt. Her aunt had carefully instructed her in Christian principles. She had also taught her Mohammedanism to make sure.
When Gertrude was seventeen her aunt had died of hydrophobia.
The circumstances were mysterious. There had called upon her that day a strange bearded man in the costume of the Russians. After he had left, Gertrude had found her aunt in a syncope from which she passed into an apostrophe and never recovered.
To avoid scandal it was called hydrophobia. Gertrude was thus thrown upon the world. What to do? That was the problem that confronted her.
It was while musing one day upon her fate that Gertrude’s eye was struck with an advertisement.
“Wanted a governess; must possess a knowledge of French, Italian, Russian, and Roumanian, Music, and Mining Engineering. Salary £1, 4 shillings and 4 pence halfpenny per annum. Apply between half-past eleven and twenty-five minutes to twelve at No. 41 A Decimal Six, Belgravia Terrace. The Countess of Nosh.”
Gertrude was a girl of great natural quickness of apprehension, and she had not pondered over this announcement more than half an hour before she was struck with the extraordinary coincidence between the list of items desired and the things that she herself knew.
She duly presented herself at Belgravia Terrace before the Countess, who advanced to meet her with a charm which at once placed the girl at her ease.
“You are proficient in French?” she asked.
“Oh, oui,” said Gertrude modestly.
“And Italian?” continued the Countess.
