AMERICAN LOVE-MAKING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12609, 25 June 1904, Page 2 (Supplement)

AMERICAN LOVE-MAKING.

"CONSIDER YOURSELF KISSED." " Please write to me soon, and tell me how everything is going along with my little sweetheart. 0. Y. K." • The above extract from a billet-doux was read during the hearing of * breach of promise case in Mr. 1 Justice Phillimore's Court in London early in May. To lovers/ sentimentalists, and billet-doux writers its interest lies not so much in the exquisite neatness of the tender phrase which comprises it as in the letters C. Y. K. at tqe- bottom. - These letters are not, as everybody not in the secret would at first suppose, the initials of the writer, for the name of that gentleman is Savile Bodger, of San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A. They are in reality an American invention designed to save time in loveletter writing. . What they really mean is told during the course of the following romantic story: — During last summer Mr.' Savile Bodger, who is by profession an insurance clerk working at an office in San Antonio, and a young man liberally endowed with the ;'< : national desire for speed, decided to take a tour in Europe with his sister Fanny. When; they arrived in England and came to London, one of the places which they first visited was the bouse in Cambden-street, Oakley Square, where a cousin, whom they had not seen since they, were all little boys and girls together, resided with her stepfather. Sr The name of this cousin was Miss Kate Ada Reddan. Both Miss Kate Reddan and Mr. Savile Bodger thought what a very nice young man and young woman they had respectively grown up into, and they felt that they liked one another very much. . The cousins from America were taken out on shopping and sight-seeing expeditions by Miss Reddan, with the result that in a few days Mr. Bodger completely lost his heart and proposed marriage. But Miss Reddan, being "English, did not quite understand these expeditious American methods. She told Mr. Bodger that their acquaintance (as grown-ups) being «o short,; she could not at once accept him.

Mr. Bodger was undaunted, however, by this slight rebuff. He found further, opportunities for making love during a trip to Paris, in which he himself and his sister Fanny, Miss Reddan,; and another cousin, named Taverner, took part. ; When they came back to England he again proposed, arid this time he was accepted. It was then arranged that tin mariage, which Mr. Bodger personally wished to " hustle on" as quickly as possible, should take place the following spring. TABLOID LOVE LETTERS. . A ring was given, and thereupon Mr. Bodger indited some delightfully rapid patent compactum love letters. With such expressions, " Thy sweet smile haunts me still, he did more In a few lines than the ordinary Englishman could manage on reams of notepaper, but his greatest triumph wast "G. 1. K." These symbols occurred at the end of his letters in place of the usual crosses, that takes such a long time to write if one wishes to be very affectionate. ' >'■ ' "C. Y. K.," explained Mr. Bodger, when asked for a translation, " stood for ' Consider yourself kissed,'" and was a short but thoroughly efficient substitute for thousands of crosses. Miss Reddan not ouly ''considered herself kissed,",, but she also considered herself bound by irrevocable ties to Mr. Bodger, and when she received the following message from Mr. Bodger on the eve of his departure for Texas—whither it had been arranged he should go before returning' to marry her—she was very much surprised. After careful consideration," wrote Mr. Bodger, " I find J hav« made a (polish mistake, and sincerely regret it. Please forget me as soon as you can, and let me leave old England as happy as possible with you and nothing more than cousins. .Do not ask to see me again, as it is impossible. With great respect and much sorrow' I am still your cousin, Savile." Miss Beddan at once wrote demanding an explanation, , but in spite of her indignation she still signed herself "Your true, loving and affectionate Kate" ; But the explanation not forthcoming, and Mr. Bodger returned? to Texas, where he has remained until this day. In .the course of cross-examination of Miss Beddan, who is a good-looking blonde, it was suggested by counsel that a gentleman out in South Africa had a considerable claim to her affections when Mr. Bodger made his proposals. In support of this suggestion counsel read an extract from one of Miss Reddan's letters to Mr. Bodger, in which she said : " How can I. write a loving letter one week and good-bye the next? , Savile, dear, ask yourself." This, counsel thought, showed that she was engaged to the. other gentleman i and loth to break off the engagement. Miss Reddan replied that there had never been any binding engagement. .' The jiirv awarded the plaintiff a verdict, with £75 damages against her absentee lover in Texas.