ROUNDABOUT BLUNTNESS

New Zealand Tablet, 15 October 1908, Page 37

ROUNDABOUT BLUNTNESS

* '.How would you have liked it if I had come home without any moustache to-night ?• Brainerd asked his wife at dinner one day. ' The barber got after me, and was bound he'd give me a clean shave.' Mrs. Brainerd uttered a sound^of dismay. ' Weil, what if I had?' defensively. •Al Cooley's had his shaved. ' ' Oh, Al Cooley! But that's a different matter I» ' Like to know why?' .

Why, Robert, think of the difference in your moustaches. His has been cropped and cropped until it's nothing but a little bunch of stubby bristles ; but yours is silky and graceful.- It would be a shame to cut yours off!* . >

' Pshaw !' said Brainerd, shrugging his .shoulders complacently. ' ■ - - r

' Oh, by the way, John Gougar came out with a smooth face to-day, he volunteered a. few nights later! 'He did? Well, John ,Gougar isn't you.' ' What do you mean?'

' Oh, he's so homely anyway that it doesn't matter what he does. He couldn't look any worse without a moustache than he does with it. But you're an unusually fine-looking^man,. Robert. I think it's wrong to nieddle with anything that's perfect.' Brainerd . laughed indulgently, as he strolled off into the library. When he came back he- had unearthed a lot of old photographs.

* Here's the idea, Emily, he said. '.Look at this picture of me at. eighteen. That's the way I'd look with a smooth face, you see. 1 ' Yes ; that's just it,' answered Mrs, Brainerd, decidedly. ' What?' He turned on her sharply. ' Why, you'd look like somebody else. The baby wouldn't know you. I'm satisfied with, you just as you are, dear.' ' What a girl !' Brainerd spoke with tender impatience. But on Sunday morning he faced her, shaving-mug in hand and determination in- his eyes. ' You'll have to come^ to it about this moustache, Emily,' he announced. ' Smooth face is the only thing. All the fellows are doing it."' • . 'Oh, Robert, please don 't !' she cried. ' But why do you care so much?'

She hesitated, then braced herself. ' You're a handsome man, Robert — you l know I think so. You're very handsome, but if there is one feature about your face that is any less handsome than another — it's your^ mouth !' Brainerd set down his shaving-mug and stared 'blankly. ' Well,' he said at last. ' You are certainly the bluntest-spoken woman I ever saw, Emily. If you felt that you must tell me a disagreeable fact like that, couldn't you have gone about it with a little bit of tact?'— -Youth's Companion.