No Half-way Measures for Riley when He Transformed Himself into Blanchard.

Free Lance, Volume XIV, Issue 723, 9 May 1914, Page 17

No Half-way Measures for Riley when He Transformed Himself into Blanchard.

WHEN Mr. and Mrs. Horace Riley had been married a little over a year, Mrs, Riley confessed that she believed she had made a mistake in marrying him. "What's the matter?" Riley asked. "Don't you love me any more?" "Oh, yes," she replied. "I like you as much as ever I did, but I think it was wrong to, marry you. I don't think I ought to have married a second time. I don't think anybody ought to. I think second marriages are sinful." Riley .said "Rotl" unsympathetically. Presently he added: "What put that idea into your bead?" Mrs. Riley tapped the first page of the magazine article that she had been reading. "This," she said. "It says— but haven't time to read the whole article. I will just give you a . synopsis of it. It says, in effect, that any woman who marries a second time makes a mistake, the only thing that can possibly excuse her for doing so being a marked, resemblance between the first and second husbands in looks, manners, habits, speech, and thought. Professor Jointsberry is the author. He is a friend of our family. On a number of occasions he has given us excellent advice, and when he says that second marriages are not advisable I am nuite sure that he knows what he is talking about. I am doubly convinced that he is right, because up to the time I met you I felt just that way myself. Indeed, the truth is, I should never have married you if you had not looked so much like poor Mr. Blanchard." "Oh, you wouldn't?" said Riley, really interested at last. "You never told us anything like that before." "No, I know I never did. I was afraid I would hurt your feelings. But it is so. You are wonderfully like Wilbur. The first time I saw you I turned quite faint. The resemblance seemed really supernatural. It seemed, for a minute as if Wilbur had been resurrected before his time and had come back to haunt me." "I am beginning," said dryly, "to entertain a decided admiration for Mr. Blanchard." "Well, you ottght to," she returned coolly, "considering how well pleased you are with yourself. You are just his height, and your hair and complexion are for all the world like his. Then your moustache grows heavier on the left side, just as his did, and you've even got that same cute little way of squinting up your right eye every little while. •You've. frot a scar on your left wrist, too, the same as he had, and you have his provoking habit of saying, .'Oh, I don't know about that,' whenever anybody says anything you don't happen to like." "In that case your conscience ought to be clear," Riley said. ' "Since the lamented Mr. Blanchard and myself seem to be twin peas you haven't anything to worry about.?' "Oh, yes, I have," she returned tearfully. "You are a great deal like Wilbur, but you are not enough like him. Please don't be angry, * Horace and do not ridicule. I have thought over this matter seriously ever since I read this article ten days ago, and I have come to the conclusion that the only way T. can reconcile myself to the situation is for you to cultivate more of Mr. Ulan- . chard's mannerisms, so I won't be able to tell, without stopping to think about it, whether you are vourself or Wilbur." ."It strikes me," Riley' erroaned, "that I've got peculiarities enough of my own without adopting a batch of new ones. Still, if that is your, only chance for happiness, and you really "do seem to.be in dead earnest about this thing, I supnose I ought not, to balk at accmiring a few of Mr. Blanchard's pet tricks." Mrs. Riley dried her eyes. "Yon are very good." she said. "As soon as I get time 1 will make out a list of certain little habits Mr. Blanchard had which it would make me most happv to see you adopt. The only things I can think ..of now are. his passion for "black pepper —he wanted everything made fairly black with fondness for lavender socks, and his funny way of crookiner his index finger every few minutes when he got interested m talking." "Oh, see here," Riley protested. 'jYou don't expect me to make such an idiot of mvself as all that, do youP" . "Mr. Blanchard did," Mrs. Riley murmured pensively. "Then Riley snail," her husband returned heroically. Two months after he began to conBnme expensive quantities of pepper, _to sport lavender socks, to twiddle his index finger and to perform, various feats indicative of the eccentricitv of his predecepsor: Riley began to stay out late at night. For several weeks Mrs. Riley

Was He Going to Endure a Pepper Diet and Wear Lavender Socks Without a Struggle?— Not He!

bore the nocturnal desertion uncomplainingly, but when Riley came in one morning about 2 o'clock, with torn' raiment and dishevelled hair, she put aside her patient demeanor and turned relentless inquisitor. "Where have you been?" she asked. "Down town," said Riley."What for? Not for business, surely. You couldn't have been out on a business errand all- this time." "No," he replied coolly, "it was not business.". "You were at the club, perhaps?" "No. I was not at the club." "Then, in the .name of heaven, where were you?" "I don't think you have any right to question me in this way," said Riley stiffly. "I refuse to tell you where I have been." "Oh. you cruel, cruel man," cried Mrs. Riley. "You will break my heart, you will, indeed. What in the world has come over you? You never used to treat me so." "No, I didn't." he admitted. "That was because I was Riley then. Now I i am Blanchard. I am following along his lines. I've got to make the incarnation It is a psychological impossibility to imitate him in one thing and not imitate him all the way through. That is what I am doing now. I can't help myself. Since I've started, it must be Blanchard all over or nothing." "But he never treated me this way," she protested. "He was the kindest, gentlest, loveliest man alive." Riley sat down on the edge of the sofa and clasped his hands about his knees. "Now, see here," he said, "you can tell, can't you. that I haven't been drinking ?" "No, she replied, "I don't think you have. You look like it, but I think you haven't." "Then you mav take it for granted that I am talking straight. What I am goinc to say may hurt, but I've got to sav it. It will shatter an idol. I hate to do that, but it is necessary in order that you may understand that' the nace I am orc-ine now and the still swifter pacn at which I shall go hereafter are in°Tn+nble. Marsraret. that first rmsbp-nrf nf yours was a reerular d-e-vil. H" used to <rn on thp most tremendous tears imagriuahle. jj p besran Just as T hnva hem-m—Tiv stavinpr out Tate at niorh+. cominc homo J-p. af] sorts of coprKtWis. and finally he wound up by stavinc? n-n-n-u from home fo- weeks at a timn. w?+Ti<-.n+ Ip+.tfrinr soiV. know where he was." ' T—■" c"-f>r —-kr» pttt —Ti 'm —+ n — fl o—such —a —thino-." snhhpr! Mrs. "R.ifpv "TTint, wns o°oanpp ynp hadn't Howti him loner enough. Remember, -rou were married onlv a vear. Bv strong selfconstraint he managed to hold nimself in check for that leneth of time, but T have it on oood anihoritv—no less a man than Professor Joiutsberrv bv the wa-r-—that, he was preparing to go on « <rfp , aut?c bender when the end came. Tn on« wav it is a good thing, for you that ho died when he did. T am afraid vou have seen the last of vonr happv moment's with Blanchard. Likewise. I nm nfraid vnu have seen about the last of them with me. T don't want to errievA vou. but T can't help it. Professor .Jointsberry himself says I can't. To suit you I have undertaken to make mvself a second Blanchard. and I've got to take his faults along with his virtues. There is no such thing as lavender socks and a pepper diet without Mr. Blanchard's dissipation. The combination is inseparable. T don't enjoy this sort of mvself. but if' it will ease your conscience for me to wreck my constitution and my character, why of course T am willing: to make the sacrifice." Riley drew off one shoe and threw it under the sofa, the other he fired recklesslv in the direction of the lookingglass. His wife stared at him in consternation. "That is the strangest thiner I ever heard of," she said. "It is queer," Riley assented. "Truly. the wonders of psychology ai > beyond the ken of ordinary minds." At breakfast next morning Mrs. Riley limited her conversation to just three remarks. She said: "Good morning," "Good-bye," and. "I am going down to see Professor Jointsberrv to-day." That evening, as had been her custom for several weeks, the maid served Riley with a preliminary meat course that very nearlv set her sneezing on the way from the kitchen. Riley helped himself generously. "I don't believe," said Mrs. Riley, "that you have learned to like pepper yet. have you, Horace f" /•Not particularly ', but I can get away with-it nowadays Without blistering myself incurably. You needn't •worry about;

me." Mrs. Riley looked at the maid sternly. "Janet," she said, 'take that stuff away and bring Mr. Riley a clean plate." Presently she added: "I stopped at the store on my way home from Professor Jointsberry's and bought you two dozen pairs of black socks. I carried them home myself so you can have a pair in the morning." "Thank you," said Riley discreetly.