THE STORY-TELLER.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 128, 26 November 1904, Page 10

THE STORY-TELLER.

With Borrowed Plumes* + — . It began with an "Age Party," and concerning that interesting function I've only this to 'say— that if you've never teen roped in for one, then you've missed the opportunity of your life for making a blooming idiot of yourself. You go in, all unsuspecting, -and they give you a list of questions — the numher varies in exact proportion to the hostess's greater or less delight in inflicting needless suffering on an inoffensive fel-low-creature — each and every one of which must be answered by a word ending in "age." For example : What is the servant girl's age? And the answer is "breakage." - -- •- "•- " Then there was "sausage" and "cabbage" 'and "dotage," and a lot more, each one the answer to which some fool question that no sane man would bother his brain with. Nice recreation, that, ior a man who's worked hard all day in an office ! Of course I was the booby. I'd foreseen it from the start, but I wasn't the only one, and that wasn't the worst of it either. Jack Wilson was the other, and we were forced to put on ridiculous paper caps — dunce caps with "Booby" written across them in big letters, if you insist upon entire frankness. We wore the caps with such show of dignity as we were able to command, which was, I (link, after all but a very poor imitation of the real thing, and we grinned feebly at the witless jokes the ,other fellows made at our expense. But we left as soon as, or possibly a little sooner than, we decently could and went up to Jack's room, where we coneolel ou seves with cigas and brandy-and-sodas and other creature comforts, and vowed to get even with our tormentors. , , . "I'd just like to show them," said I, "that we're not such idiots as»we seemed." ■ ' Jack surrounded himself with a cloud of tobacco smoke and lapsed into, a browV study.' Now ■nhen another man's brain is working, I know better than to interrupt the process with ill-timed remarks. I smoked and drank 'at discreet number of "high balls," and said nothing And I had my reward. For when Jack's cigar had ..burned down so far that it began to singe his moustache, he brought his feet down with a -bang that •threatened tei dislodge the ,pipe^ frdm the lack on the wall and faced me with the eir of one who has solved the problem of the ages (whatever that may fee). "You know those smart chaps in books and on the stage," he began, with what seemed to me singular irrelevance, "the ones whore always going about getting «ff epigrams and scattering I nodded. "Well," Jack went on triumphantly, "Ive 1 found out -exactly how they do it!" Ckarly hV expected me to be impressed. . „' "Nq 1 !"- 1 said. "You don't meant it!" - "It's- dead easy," replied Jack, "when once you're on. 'Most anybody can say 'clever things .if only the right thing's paid to bring 'em out." "Something like a vaudeville sidewalk eovereation?" I hazarded. ' "That's it exactly," said Jack "Now, take those writer chaps, it's easy for them to manufacture clever people. They don't have to say things on the spucpf, Ite moment". ' Th^ey; can think it over for - days if they like, - and then, too, they qan always ma,ke the other fellow say just the right thing to lead up to the olever speecaes they've been planning." ''Thai, .may be aJL ve^ fccue, 11 ; joined, "butj for the life of me, I can't see how It's 'going to help us to establish'a reputation for brilliancy«" Jack looked at me with pity for my dense ignorance, and began to elucidate his plan. • • ' Vl Yoif see," said he, "we'U think up a lot "of,, clever things to say, and then the next time we're out together we'll begin firing them at each other." "Couldn't we buy them somewhere by 'the yara".?"'l suggested" hopefully. "I 'don't believe I could think of anything clever, not even if I tried for a.' thousand yearns." "Oh, nonsense!" said Jack. "A fellow never knows what he can do till he tries. Here," and he shoved a piece of paper toward me, "get your brain fee working." But my brain refused to work. Strange to say, so also did Jack's. At the end of half an hour my paper was still blank, and Jack hadn't made a scratch on his "Hang it," he exclaimed, "we've smoked too much. And those cigais weie great. I wish I had my half back." . "It isD't everybody,"! remarked genially, "who can have a half-back all to himself." .. Jack .gave me a howl of,, joy and fell to scrabbling vigorously. , "Do it again 1" he shouted. "Give us another !" "Now, see here," I expostulated*, "you surely don!t think that sort of thing will go?" "Of course it will go," said Jack detlslvery. "Think up come more." "Not until we've perpetrated that," I Said firmly. • "All right," Jack finally agreed ; "we'll use it as a, sample.'" l. To my great _ surprise the "sampler,", ■ absurd though 'it was, was well received — so weu» .indeed, that we were encouraged to £4$ off a, few mpr6. To nyak'e a long .story short, we went from bad to worse, and, it- wasn't" a month before we'd established a reputation for repartee that ke"pt. ''ftV'hustling tq live up. One of us would mak,'e some, trivial remark and the otne,r -would say ': "Oh, by the way, that rMinds me " and then out would cope our latest siory. But we didn't reach the zenith of our fame till Laura Trayers came into our Bet. Laura was a visiting girl, and of course we /elt in duty bound to spread ourselves t for her special -benefit. I nearly quarrelled with Jack when somebody quoted her as having said : "How very olever Mr. Wilson is," and Jack went around looking like a thunder cloud the night she laughed at one of my stories till the tears ran down her cheeks We were both dead in love with, her,' but as neither of us could shine save in the company of the other, we were forced to hunt always in couples. Either, one of us would have been glad to lose , the other, but as a mutter of fact we didn't dare, for Laura "adored clever men and "loved a good story," and our only chance of impre*- 'ng her was to stick toi gether. > Of course either one of us cauld easily have spoiled the other's joke, but that was a game two could play at, so we played fair, and the things we said were the talk of our set. Two months went by, and Laura's visil was drawing to a close, . So' far as any one could afee she had "never favoured one of us above the others as- a matter of fact, ehe'd never had. the chance to do so even had shfe, possessed' the iriplination. "- ' •'■'• ' . I don't mind confessing that, for my part, I'd sooner have faced a loaded cannon. than, that girl "without Jack to help me 1 out, 1 and I've reason tq believe that h»." felt' the &ame. .. It was, fate. arid an opportune thunderstorm ;tJjaln thrust upon me the tete-a-tete Tdrfe^efa. too -cowardly. 'to seek for myself:'*" 1 •"•'" There was not much doing, and I'd left my office an hour earlier than usual. Just as I stepped on to the footpath it began to 'sprinkle, and I hadn't gone a

block before I saw that we were in for a regular downpour. Fortunately 1 ( had my umbrella, so to me it was a, matter of the utmost uidifference whether it rained or not. But there were others less fortunate than I. Just ahead of me the matinee crowd was streaming out of the theatre, and it was a moving spectacle to see all those women gather their skirts about them and scuttle for thb trams. But when I saw among them a slim girl in a long pongee coat. and a big black picture hat, my changed from the abstract to the concrete.' I lowered my umbrella, thfe better to dodge all that scurrying feminity, and turned myself into a rescue party of one whose sole object was to reach the slim girl in the pongee coat- before the rain should have ruined the feathers in her hat and taken all the curl out of her hair. Girls, I've observed, are apt to be rather particular, not to say fussy, about those little 'matters. I reached 'Eer side," moist and breathless, and, though I realised that I had' a reputation for brilliancy to sustain, and that the occasion was one calling for a Deat epigram, all I could find to say was: "I do hope I'm in time to save your hat." "It was awfully dear of you to think of my hat," she said, smiling up at me, and for some -unaccountable reason I was glad my mask of cleverness had slipped from me. I tucked her under my arm and turned toward the car. . "Oh," she said, "are you in a hurry? Because if you're not, let's walk. I rather like to be out in the rain." And only two days before I'd heard her. state positively that she "hated rain like a cat." Now, I may be pretty dull, but before we'd walked more than three blocks I'd done some serious thinking, and I came to the" conclusion that my chances with her quite as good as Jack Wilson's or anybody else's. Then, too, the way she snuggled up to me was distinctly encouraging, but I simply didn't dare to make the tender avowal I longed to. I faiight bully Jack Wilson info helping me to sustain my reputation as a. wit during the period of my engagement, but Laura would be sure to find me out before the honeymoon was half over, and what would the poor dear , girl think and say and do when she found she'd married a man dull as ditchwater? Then, all at once, I began to feel as I imagine must those interesting animals of Mr. Aesop, who went about in borrowed pliunes. It was all sp abhorrenti'to me that L determined to rid myself of it at any cost. ' ' ! Laura probably wouldn't have any fur« ther use for me, but at least I'd have, the satisfaction of knowing I'd been perfectly honest with her. > But Laura wasn't one bit shocked or indignant ; on the contrary, she seemed to .regard it as a, great- joke. "How you must have worked," she cried, "thinking all that up. You ought to become an author." But I shook my head. "Too wearing on the nerves," I protested. Now, as this is an entirely veracious narrative, I'm bound to tell things exactly as they happened, but I want it distinctly understood that I'm not wishing to go on record as 'insinuations that womei. do .the courting. But you know, and I know, and everybody knows that the right sort of a girl will always lend a fellow a helping hand if she thinks he needs it. "WoulcTyou ininS!'" asked Laura", when we'd walked a block without any attempt on my part either to add to or take from my confession, "would you mind if"l gave you a piece. of entirely disinterested advice ?" • "I'-Trisbr you 'tvbtSid," I' said" humbly. "Well, then,"' said^ Laura, and_l saw that her cheek" were very pink, "if evei you find you've fallen in love with' a girl, don't ■ try to convince her of your \ cleverness.'' - "But," I said helplessly, "I thought, girls liked clever men." — "Well," Laura retorted, "they don't like to feel they.re living under a shower of sky-rockets You never can tell when one of the sticks is going to come down and Kit you." Dense" 'as I was, I understood, and thenWell, there was no one in sight in front us, and the umbrella shut out prying eyes from the rear. * "So then," I Baid, when once more we found ourselves walking sedately along the wet sidewalk, "it wasn't because of the epigrams and" — and things' that you loved me?" "Because of them indeed,'' said Laura, in pretty scorn ; "my dear, -it was in spite of them." — TJna- Hudson, in -the Argosy.