Raspberry Jam | Page 4

and spilled his beans. Lots of them object to the fights because of the expense--fighters are a high-priced bunch--but I'm down on them because I think it bad form--"
"I should say so!" put in Eunice, emphatically.
"Bad form for an Athletic Club of gentlemen to have brutal exhibitions for their entertainment."
"And what about the Motion-Picture Theatre?"
"The same there! Frightful expense,--and also rotten taste! No, the Metropolitan Athletic Club can't stoop to such entertainments. If it were a worth-while little playhouse, now, and if they had a high class of performances, that would be another story. Hey, Aunt Abby? What do you think?"
"I don't know, Sanford, you know I'm ignorant on such matters. But I want to ask you something. Have you read the paper to-day?"
"Why, yes, being a normal American citizen, I did run through the Battle-Ax of Freedom. Why?"
"Did you read about Hanlon--the great Hanlon?"
"Musician, statesman or criminal? I can't seem to place a really great Hanlon. By the way, Eunice, if Hendricks blows in, ask him to stay to dinner, will you? I want to talk to him, but I don't want to seem unduly anxious for his company."
"Very well," and Eunice smiled; "if I can persuade him, I will."
"If you can!" exclaimed Miss Abby, her sarcasm entirely unveiled. "Alvord Hendricks would walk the plank if you invited him to do so!"
"Who wouldn't?" laughed Embury. "I have the same confidence in my wife's powers of persuasion that you seem to have, Aunt Abby; and though I may impose on her, I do want her to use them upon me deadly r-rival!"
"You mean rival in your club election," returned Miss Ames, "but he is also your rival in another way."
"Don't speak so cryptically, Aunt, dear. We all know of his infatuation for Eunice, but he's only one of many. Think you he is more dangerous than, say, friend Elliott?"
"Mason Elliott? Oh, of course, he has been an admirer of Eunice since they made mud-pies together."
"That's two, then," Embury laughed lightly. "And Jim Craft is three and Halliwell James is four and Guy Little--"
"Oh, don't include him, I beg of you!" cried Eunice; "he flats when he sings!"
"Well, I could round up a round dozen, who would willingly cast sheeps' eyes at my wife, but--well, they don't!"
"They'd better not," laughed Eunice, and Embury added, "Not if I see them first!"
"Isn't it funny," said Aunt Abby, reminiscently, "that Eunice did choose you out of that Cambridge bunch."
"I chose her," corrected Embury, "and don't take that wrong! I mean that I swooped down and carried her off under their very noses! Didn't I, Firebrand?"
"The only way you could get me," agreed Eunice, saucily.
"Oh, I don't know!" and Embury smiled. "You weren't so desperately opposed."
"No; but she was undecided," said Aunt Abby; "why, for weeks before your engagement was announced, Eunice couldn't make up her mind for certain. There was Mason Elliott and Al Hendricks, both as determined as you were."
"I know it, Aunt. Good Lord, I guess I knew those boys all my life, and I knew all their love affairs as well as they knew all mine."
"You had others, then?" and Eunice opened her brown eyes in mock amazement.
"Rather! How could I know you were the dearest girl in the world if I had no one to compare you with?"
"Well, then I had a right to have other beaux."
"Of course you did! I never objected. But now, you're my wife, and though all the men in Christendom may admire you, you are not to give one of them a glance that belongs to me."
"No, sir; I won't," and Eunice's long lashes dropped on her cheeks as she assumed an absurdly overdone meekness.
"I was surprised, though," pursued Aunt Abby, still reminiscent, "when Eunice married you, Sanford. Mr. Mason is so much more intellectual and Mr. Hendricks so much better looking."
"Thank you, lady!" and Embury bowed gravely. "But you see, I have that--er--indescribable charm--that nobody can resist."
"You have, you rascal!" and Miss Ames beamed on him. "And I think this a favorable moment to ask a favor of your Royal Highness."
"Out with it. I'll grant it, to the half of my kingdom, but don't dip into the other half."
"Well, it's a simple little favor, after all. I want to go out to Newark to-morrow in the big car--"
"Newark, New Jersey?"
"Is there any other?"
"Yep; Ohio."
"Well, the New Jersey one will do me, this time. Oh, Sanford, do let me go! A man is going to will another man--blindfolded, you know--to find a thingumbob that he hid--nobody knows where--and he can't see a thing, and he doesn't know anybody and the guide man is Mr. Mortimer--don't you remember, his mother used to live in Cambridge? she was an Emmins--well, anyway, it's the most marvelous exhibition of thought transference, or mind-reading, that has ever been shown--and I