The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton | Page 6

he would
probably have erred, to judge by his wholesome looks and firm build.
He was the inventor of an improvement in telephones, and hoped to
make his bread by selling the privilege of using it. "At present," he
continued, "a man may go and tap a telegraph wire which is conveying
a song or a concert from one state to another, and he can attach his
private telephone and steal a hearing of that music as it passes along.
My invention will stop all that."
"Well," answered Alonzo, "if the owner of the music could not miss
what was stolen, why should he care?"
"He shouldn't care," said the Reverend.
"Well?" said Alonzo, inquiringly.
"Suppose," replied the Reverend, "suppose that, instead of music that
was passing along and being stolen, the burden of the wire was loving
endearments of the most private and sacred nature?"
Alonzo shuddered from head to heel. "Sir, it is a priceless invention,"
said he; "I must have it at any cost."
But the invention was delayed somewhere on the road from Cincinnati,

most unaccountably. The impatient Alonzo could hardly wait. The
thought of Rosannah's sweet words being shared with him by some
ribald thief was galling to him. The Reverend came frequently and
lamented the delay, and told of measures he had taken to hurry things
up. This was some little comfort to Alonzo.
One forenoon the Reverend ascended the stairs and knocked at
Alonzo's door. There was no response. He entered, glanced eagerly
around, closed the door softly, then ran to the telephone. The
exquisitely soft and remote strains of the "Sweet By-and-by" came
floating through the instrument. The singer was flatting, as usual, the
five notes that follow the first two in the chorus, when the Reverend
interrupted her with this word, in a voice which was an exact imitation
of Alonzo's, with just the faintest flavor of impatience added:
"Sweetheart?"
"Yes, Alonzo?"
"Please don't sing that any more this week--try something modern."
The agile step that goes with a happy heart was heard on the stairs, and
the Reverend, smiling diabolically, sought sudden refuge behind the
heavy folds of the velvet windowcurtains. Alonzo entered and flew to
the telephone. Said he:
"Rosannah, dear, shall we sing something together?"
"Something modern?" asked she, with sarcastic bitterness.
"Yes, if you prefer."
"Sing it yourself, if you like!"
This snappishness amazed and wounded the young man. He said:
"Rosarmah, that was not like you."
"I suppose it becomes me as much as your very polite speech became
you, Mr. Fitz Clarence."
"Mister Fitz Clarence! Rosannah, there was nothing impolite about my
speech."
"Oh, indeed! Of course, then, I misunderstood you, and I most humbly
beg your pardon, ha-ha-ha! No doubt you said, 'Don't sing it any more
to-day.'"
"Sing what any more to-day?"
"The song you mentioned, of course, How very obtuse we are, all of a
sudden!"
"I never mentioned any song."

"Oh, you didn't?"
"No, I didn't!"
"I am compelled to remark that you did."
"And I am obliged to reiterate that I didn't."
"A second rudeness! That is sufficient, sir. I will never forgive you. All
is over between us."
Then came a muffled sound of crying. Alonzo hastened to say:
"Oh, Rosannah, unsay those words! There is some dreadful mystery
here, some hideous mistake. I am utterly earnest and sincere when I say
I never said anything about any song. I would not hurt you for the
whole world . . . . Rosannah, dear speak to me, won't you?"
There was a pause; then Alonzo heard the girl's sobbings retreating, and
knew she had gone from the telephone. He rose with a heavy sigh, and
hastened from the room, saying to himself, "I will ransack the charity
missions and the haunts of the poor for my mother. She will persuade
her that I never meant to wound her."
A minute later the Reverend was crouching over the telephone like a
cat that knoweth the ways of the prey. He had not very many minutes
to wait. A soft, repentant voice, tremulous with tears, said:
"Alonzo, dear, I have been wrong. You could not have said so cruel a
thing. It must have been some one who imitated your voice in malice or
in jest."
The Reverend coldly answered, in Alonzo's tones:
"You have said all was over between us. So let it be. I spurn your
proffered repentance, and despise it!"
Then he departed, radiant with fiendish triumph, to return no more with
his imaginary telephonic invention forever.
Four hours afterward Alonzo arrived with his mother from her favorite
haunts of poverty and vice. They summoned the San Francisco
household; but there was no reply. They waited, and continued to wait,
upon the voiceless telephone.
At length, when it was sunset