The Agony Column | Page 6

did. As she and her father sat down the
old man said: "I see you've got your Daily Mail."
"Of course!" she answered. "I couldn't do without it. Grapefruit --yes."
She began to read. Presently her cheeks flushed and she put the paper
down.

"What is it?" asked the Texas statesman.
"To-day," she answered sternly, "you do the British Museum. You've
put it off long enough."
The old man sighed. Fortunately he did not ask to see the Mail. If he
had, a quarter way down the column of personal notices he would have
been enraged--or perhaps only puzzled--to read:
CARLTON RESTAURANT: Nine A.M. Friday morning. Will the
young woman who preferred grapefruit to strawberries permit the
young man who had two plates of the latter to say he will not rest until
he discovers some mutual friend, that they may meet and laugh over
this column together?
Lucky for the young man who liked strawberries that his nerve had
failed him and he was not present at the Carlton that morning! He
would have been quite overcome to see the stern uncompromising look
on the beautiful face of a lady at her grapefruit. So overcome, in fact,
that he would probably have left the room at once, and thus not seen
the mischievous smile that came in time to the lady's face --not seen
that she soon picked up the paper again and read, with that smile, to the
end of the column.


CHAPTER II
The next day was Sunday; hence it brought no Mail. Slowly it dragged
along. At a ridiculously early hour Monday morning Geoffrey West
was on the street, seeking his favorite newspaper. He found it, found
the Agony Column--and nothing else. Tuesday morning again he rose
early, still hopeful. Then and there hope died. The lady at the Canton
deigned no reply.
Well, he had lost, he told himself. He had staked all on this one bold

throw; no use. Probably if she thought of him at all it was to label him a
cheap joker, a mountebank of the halfpenny press. Richly he deserved
her scorn.
On Wednesday he slept late. He was in no haste to look into the Daily
Mail; his disappointments of the previous days had been too keen. At
last, while he was shaving, he summoned Walters, the caretaker of the
building, and sent him out to procure a certain morning paper.
Walters came back bearing rich treasure, for in the Agony Column of
that day West, his face white with lather, read joyously:
STRAWBERRY MAN: Only the grapefruit lady's kind heart and her
great fondness for mystery and romance move her to answer. The
strawberry-mad one may write one letter a day for seven days--to prove
that he is an interesting person, worth knowing. Then--we shall see.
Address: M. A. L., care Sadie Haight, Carlton Hotel.
All day West walked on air, but with the evening came the problem of
those letters, on which depended, he felt, his entire future happiness.
Returning from dinner, he sat down at his desk near the windows that
looked out on his wonderful courtyard. The weather was still torrid, but
with the night had come a breeze to fan the hot cheek of London. It
gently stirred his curtains; rustled the papers on his desk.
He considered. Should he at once make known the eminently
respectable person he was, the hopelessly respectable people he knew?
Hardly! For then, on the instant, like a bubble bursting, would go for
good all mystery and romance, and the lady of the grapefruit would
lose all interest and listen to him no more. He spoke solemnly to his
rustling curtains.
"No," he said. "We must have mystery and romance. But where--where
shall we find them?"
On the floor above he heard the solid tramp of military boots belonging
to his neighbor, Captain Stephen Fraser-Freer, of the Twelfth Cavalry,
Indian Army, home on furlough from that colony beyond the seas. It

was from that room overhead that romance and mystery were to come
in mighty store; but Geoffrey West little suspected it at the moment.
Hardly knowing what to say, but gaining inspiration as he went along,
he wrote the first of seven letters to the lady at the Carlton. And the
epistle he dropped in the post box at midnight follows here:
DEAR LADY OF THE GRAPEFRUIT: You are very kind. Also, you
are wise. Wise, because into my clumsy little Personal you read
nothing that was not there. You knew it immediately for what it
was--the timid tentative clutch of a shy man at the skirts of Romance in
passing. Believe me, old Conservatism was with me when I wrote that
message. He was fighting hard. He followed me, struggling, shrieking,
protesting, to the post box itself.