NEW WAY TO PROPOSE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue XVIII, 29 October 1898, Page 575

NEW WAY TO PROPOSE.

As the young man entered the old man looked up and scowled. ‘Well?’ said the old man, shortly. 'Your daughter,’ began the young man, but the old man cut him off abruptly. ‘l’ve noticed that you’ve been hanging around a good deal,’ he said. ‘I suppose that you’ve come to tell me that you love her and want to marry her?’ ‘No,’ replied the young man. calmly. ‘l’ve come to tell you that she loves me. and wants to marry me.’ ‘What!’ cried the old man. ‘She says so herself,’ persisted the young man. ‘I never heard of such an exhibition of egotistical impertinence,’ said the old man.

‘Then you misunderstand me.’ exclaimed the young man. ‘My assertion is dictated by policy and not by impertinence. You see it’s just this way; what I want is nothing to you; now, is it?’

‘Why—not exactly.’ ‘I might want £ 10,000, but that wouldn’t impress you, would it?’ ‘Certainly not.’ ‘You’re under no obligation to supply me with what I want, are you?’ ‘Hardly.’

‘Then, what a foolish proposition it would be for me to come to you and say, “Mr Parkinson, I have been favourably impressed with your house and grounds,” or “I think I’d like your daughter,” or anything else in that line. But when your daughter wants anything, it’s different. Now, isn’t it different?’ ‘lt certainly is different,’ admitted the old man, cautiously. ‘Precisely,’ said the young man. ‘She and I reasoned that all out very carefully last night. You see, I have no particular prospects, and ! we could both see that there wasn’t one chance in a hundred that you would give her to me. Then she mentioned that you

had never yet refused her anything she wanted, no matter what the cost might be, and that perhaps it would be a good plan to change the usual order somewhat. We felt that it wouldn’t be right to ask you to do anything for me, but it’s different in her case, as I remarked before. So I’m here nietely as her agent to say that she wants me. that she wants me very much, and to ask you to please see that she gets me. She never has wanted anything so much as she wants me, and I am so favourably disposed toward her that if you care to make the investment I shall be quite willing to leave the terms entirely to you and her.*

Naturally she got him. No wide awake business man is going to overlook a chance to get such a fine sample of nerve into the family.