Excerpt
MAN AND WIVES.
A TRAVESTY.
By MOSE SKINNER.
CHAPTER FIFTH.
QUEER DOINGS AT THE HALF-WAY HOUSE.
"Tell the minister," said ANN to TEDDY, "to come in. If I don't get a husband out of this somehow, I ain't smart. I'll just marry the man I've got here."
ARCHIBALD sank down on the sofa, bathed in a cold perspiration.
"Oh, don't" he groaned; "you mustn't. 'Twasn't my fault; JEFF sent me."
Her eyes flashed on him angrily.
"Yes, you helped JEFF set a trap for me," said she, "and you've fell into it yourself. Come, here's the minister."
But ARCHIBALD didn't come, he only turned white, and made a gurgling noise.
"There should be somebody here competent to give away the bridegroom," said the minister, with an air of annoyance.
"Sure, and it's meself as'll do that same," said TEDDY, obeying a nod from ANN.
"Away now with sich modeshty, youngster. Bear up and be a man. It'll soon be over. And if ye make a fuss," he added in a whisper, "I'll knock the head off ye. Do ye mind that?" Then, as if relating his experience to a large and sympathetic audience: "'Twas just that way I felt meself like, when the knot was tied. Wake in the knees sim'larly, and a faylin' like I was a cold dish-cloth wrung out. But Lord, he'll hold up his head agin, I'll warrant ye."
"Oh, why can't you let me go?" begged ARCHIBALD, "I ain't done nothin'."
TEDDY smiled. 'Twas such a smile as a dentist gives, just before he swoops upon his prey.
"Did you iver now?" said he, appealing to the minister. "What a man it is. As bashful as a young gyrl, without a mammy to smooth it over. Steady now. There you are, as nice as a cotton hat," he continued, as he put ARCHIBALD'S arm within ANN'S. "Lean aginst me as hard as iver ye like, man. I well knows as I'll nivir git me reward in this world, for all the young cooples as I've startid in life, but, thank Hevins, there's another."
The ceremony commenced.
What can one coy youth do, single-handed, against a woman who is determined to marry him? Like the beautiful young lady in the endless love-stories, who faints at the altar with her hard-hearted father, the Duke, on one side, and the relentless bridegroom, the Count, on the other, ARCHIBALD BLINKSOP was hemmed in by destiny. There was alas! no steel-clad knight with his visor down, to rush in, and shout in trumpet tones: "Hold! I forbid the bans—— To be continued in our next. Back numbers sent to any address." No. Steel-clad knights are, unfortunately, somewhat scarce in Indiana, and so the ceremony continued.
TEDDY was first bridesman. He not only supported ARCHIBALD, but he held his head and jerked it forward occasionally, thus assisting in the responses.
The ceremony concluded.
At its close ARCHIBALD BLINKSOP, according to the Law of Indiana, was a Man and One Wife.
At its close ANN BRUMMET, according to the same Law, was a Woman and One Husband.
The world is large. To a woman of her immense strategical resources this was but a fair beginning. Blest with a good constitution and rare matrimonial attainments, why should she falter in the good work thus begun...?