THE LAKESIDE MUSINGS. BY TEN EYCK WHITE. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE. CHICAGO : RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY. 1884. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, BY RAND, McNALLY & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. CONTENTS. PACK A Daughter's Sacrifice 222 A Foiled Editor 245 A Mediaeval Romance 151 A Modern Parable 38 A New England Romance 219 An Iconoclastic Papa 74 An Ohio Romance 187 A Parisian Romance 49 A Sacred Relic 226 A Safe Proposition 243 A Sea Tale 76 A Social Question Settled 15 Assisting the Deserving 50 A Woman's Speech . 33 A Yule-Tied Tale .169 Bertha's Sacrifice 126 Better than Working 221 Blanks Between the Stars 46 Boston Extremities 12 Boston Voluptuousness 213 Camille 270 Couldn't Back 185 Couldn't Lose Him 207 Croquet Problem 235 Deathless Devotion 276 Didn't Figure on Papa 7 Didn't Get In 270 East Lynne Reconstructed 107 Entering Journalism 52 Exposing his Weakness 182 Far in the Future 135 Fifine's Marriage 145 (3) LAKESIDE MUSINGS. Fishing and Matrimony - 216 Forgave Her Parent - 258 Girls do not Sweep 181 Haunted by the Speech 202 Herbert's Death 273 He Bluffed and Won 79 Her Dearest Wish 240 Her Fatal Foot 176 Her Sensitive Soul - 128 Her Tender Voice 29 Hiawatha's Wooing 119 His Chilly Blood.. 249 How Harold Died 227 How He Won Her 85 How She Saved Him. 252 How to Regain Him 196 How to Write a Christmas Story 154 Humor to Order 43 Improved Poetry 97 Improved Undergarments 57 Increased Her Value 140 " L' Assommoir " in Long on Dogs 159 Love and Cooking 208 Love's Stratagem. 36 Love's Test 246 Met the Dog ^ 173 More Precious than Ever 237 Myrtle Got There 262 Myrtle's Reward 9 Naming the Baby 129 Not Wise Enough 174 Obituary Gems 194 On the Brink 157 On the Eve of Matrimony 229 Our Girls 277 Overwhelming Odds 280 Poetry on Tap 254 Points on Etiquette 137 Saved by a Jack- Pot 333 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. PAGE She Got the Hat 19 Social Romance. 267 Social Topics 192 Songs for the Fireside 104 Sunrise and Sealskin Sacques 161 Tender and True 218 The Beautiful Snow 27 The Broken Vow 178 The Bud of Promise Racket 163 The Daughter's Resolve 231 TheFatal Dream 58 The Loves of the Mulcaheys 21 The Maiden's Gift 90 The Modern Balaklava 61 The Modern Obituary 31 TheOld, Old Story 93 The Other Mozart 25 The Perils of Oratory 41 The Poet's Fate 73 The Pork-Packer's Awakening 86 The Power of Poetry 117 The Result of a Raise 260 The Siren and the Sucker 123 The Society Reporter 271 TheStoryof Atalanta 66 The Story of Charles 203 TheStoryof Lucy 62 The Test of Love 70 The True Saxon Spirit 141 Under Different Circumstances 93 Views on Art 8l What He Could Stand 101 What Rupert Wanted 94 What Shall we do with our Pianos ? 2io What She Neglected 132 Why He Wept 200 Why She Grieved 167 Why She Loved Him 265 Why they Parted 188 Wooed but Not Won 144 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. DIDN'T FIGURE ON PAPA. " I am very rich, my darling," she said softly, punctu- ating her sentences with sweet, warm kisses. " Already I have $100,000 worth of 4 per cents, in my name, and when the leaves are turning red in the golden October days and the fields are laughing in the rich abundance of a bountiful harvest, I shall cut off the coupons, and when papa dies he will leave me nearly $200,000 more. Yes, my sweetheart, I am a very happy girl," and a fair young head nestled confidingly on the shoulder of the strong- limbed, hazel-eyed young man to whom this avowal was made. He looked tenderly down at the brown tresses and the invisible net that bound them to the fair fore- head. Gently lifting the beautiful face to his, he pressed a passionate kiss on the full, red lips, that seemed only made for osculation. Turning his head away, Herbert Ainsleigh appeared for a moment to be wrapped in thought. Then, kissing Miriam with a rich, warm, two-for-a-quarter kiss, he said: " Do you love me, Birdie? " She gave answer by placing her soft, white arms around his neck, and throwing herself madly on his shirt front. " Do not hug so hard, darling, an' you love me, or my (7) 8 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. collar-stud will raise a carbuncle on the back of my neck," he said in low, mellow tones. " It is only the deep, passionate longing of my love, Herbert; it recks not of carbuncles. But you are right. Too much pressure on the cervical vertebra will cause an exostosis. My professor of anatomy told me that." " And we will be married in the fall, my sweet? " " Yes, Herbert, in the rich, hazy, sensuous days of Indian summer, when the low note of the farmer's boy seeking the lost cow is heard as he sits on the vine-embowered stile and blasphemes until the fire-fly leaves for a cooler spot. You must take all my money, Herbert; it must be yours to do as you will with it, to attain the glorious fame that awaits you; for I know that my love's name will some day be known through the length and breadth of the land. Surely, you have an ambition? " " I have," said Herbert, kissing her while she caught her breath. " And you will not let any false pride stand in the way of using my money to attain the height you fain would reach? " " No, darling, I will not. You say you have $100,000 in 4 per cents. It is enough. To-morrow I will act, and in less than a day my name will be as familiar through- out the world as that of England's proud Queen." " Oh, Herbert, what will you do? " "I shall purchase Maud S." ******* Two minutes later a human form fell with a dull thud on the front porch of the haughty pork-packer's resi- dence. It was Herbert Ainsleigh. The old man had fired him out. LAKE SI DP: MUSINGS. MYRTLE'S REWARD. At sunset on a beautiful day in June a solitary horse- car might have been seen ascending the brow of a hill. As the dappled palfrey which drew it bravely on reached the crest of the eminence and paused for an instant be- fore beginning the downward journey, the intelligent beast gave a snort of terror, and sprang so suddenly to one side that the helmeted knight in whose womanly- white hands were gathered the reins was yanked violently over the brake, and most of the air knocked out of his system ere he could regain his position abaft the dash- board, and again head the terrified charger in the direction of Western avenue. "By my halidom! " quoth the knight. "St. Julien must have seen an oat." It was true. Some roystering son of Blue Island ave- nue, going home with many a flagon of bock beer beneath his corselet, had with wasteful hand thrown by the road- side no less than several oats, at the sight of which the neighing steed which so gallantly breasted the brow of the hill at the opening of this chapter, was stricken with the terror that always comes to beasts when that which they have ne'er before beheld comes suddenly within the vista of their gaze. "Curses on the horse! he has broken my "suspender! " exclaimed Roderigo O'Rourke, eighth Duke of Wexford, as he wound the lines around the brake and spliced his pants with a string;. In a corner of the car sits Myrtle Hathaway, her pure, passionless face with wine-red lips pressed closely 16 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. to the window. She is pure as the driven snow, and chaste as an ice-wagon. Two years ago she was the petted idol of doting parents the pampered child of luxury and unlimited confectionery but one soft, sensuous day in summer, when the fields were laughing in the golden glory of an ample harvest, her father came home and said to her in tear-choked tones: "We must sleep in the woodshed to-night; this house is no longer mine. All that I possessed has been lost forever." Myrtle did not question him, did not seek to intrude upon the sacred precincts of his grief, but went silently away and blew in her last quarter for ice-cream. George W. Hathaway did not long survive the horse- race that swept away his fortune, and in the fall they buried him in the sun-kissed cemetery beyond the beer garden, away from the noise and turmoil of the great city. But Myrtle, although accustomed to every luxury that credit could purchase, was possessed of a brave heart and large feet, and had gone forth to battle with the world and earn her own living. " I will gain my daily bread," she said; but after learning that making seventeen shirts for eight cents was the most lucrative operation open to her, she had concluded to change her subscription to the tri-weekly. On the opposite seat of the car from Myrtle sat Bertha Redingote. The girls had moved in the same social circle in the days when Myrtle lolled idly in the lap of luxury, but now that she sat on one knee Bertha did not recognize her. But Myrtle cared not for this. " Let Bertha flaunt her prosperity and grenadine polonaise in my face, if she will," she had said, " the time may come LAKESIDE MUSINGS. \ i when I shall again be heading the procession, and if it does, I shall have a pool or two on myself." " Leavitt street," said the conductor, his voice arousing Myrtle from the reverie into which she had fallen. Both girls left the car. On the corner, his choke-me-to-death collar looking wierdly white beneath the fitful glare of the West Side gas, stood Ethelbert de Courcey " Good-bye, John," the boys called him, because they said that name was easier to remember, and had a Cook county tinge to it. He was a good young man almost too good to be true and very rich. His wealth made him the object of maneuvering on the part of designing mothers with marriageable daughters, but thus far he had escaped unscathed. Both girls knew him. Bertha advanced with a witching Ogden avenue smile on her face, as if to claim his company in her homeward walk; but he heeded her not. Advancing quickly to Myrtle's side, he said: " May I see you home, Miss Hathaway? " "Yes," replied the girl, the pink suffusion of a blush hustling rapidly over her cheek as she took his arm. On the way to the humble pie-foundry where she fought the bedbugs, they talked upon the current topics of the day the cable-cars, how Maud S. would drive to the pole, Mr. Beecher's indigestion, etc.; but presently Ethelbert's voice sank lower, his tones became more tender, and he told the blushing girl the story of his love of how he fain would make her his West Washington street bride. When he had finished, Myrtle looked up into his eyes those eyes so tender and true and, with a little happy sob, called his bluff. 12 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. BOSTON EXTREMITIES. " Do you like apple fritters? " The November sun, strangely beautiful in its deep crimson glow, was sinking slowly into a mass of dull gray clouds that were piled up in the western horizon, and casting such a bright, aureate glow on the landscape as to remind one of the fabled time when the gods played with blocks of gold that filled the world with their daz- zling gleam. Gwendolen Mahaffy sat at the window of Distress Warrant Castle, and, gazing wistfully out at the scene which nature mother of all art had pictured in such vivid colors, asked of him who stood beside her the question with which this chapter opens. Very beautiful was Gwendolen a calm, pensive beauty that witched men with a subtle influence and kept them blindly following the ignis fatuus of a hoped-for love that could never exist; kept them willing vassals to a passion that finally left them ghastly wrecks on the wind-swept sea of shattered hopes. It was this beauty this fatal four-flush beauty that kept Harold Nonesuch by Gwendolen's side. Her brow, broad and white, her skin, delicate as a young rose-leaf, with the faint flush on her cheeks, baffled description; but it was in her eyes, large, dark, and shadowed by their lashes until their violet depths looked black, that her chief beauty lay. But what was beyond poet to phrase or artist to reproduce was her deep, intellectual nature and appetite for pie, softened by a spirituality of soul that would often make her stub her toe when she thought about it. Hers was a loveliness like that of a delicate LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 13 tropical flower, which blooms but to perish in all its beauty too fragile for the storms and sins of earth, too soilless and sacred for this life. Gwendolen had often thought of this as she lay in her bed at night watching the stars that seemed like sentinels keeping a silent vigil over a sin-stained world, and then, when perhaps all the household were sleeping, she would get up and eat cold toast. There was ever a wistful yearning in her heart for the unknowable an eager seeking for something, she knew not what, that seemed forever and ever just beyond the back fence of her soul. And so the years had gone on in their silent march to the tomb of the ages, until Gwendolen, standing on the verge of womanhood, had received from Harold None- such the greatest compliment that man can pay to woman an offer to try and settle for board. Never for an instant had she suspected the deep passionate admiration that this man's soul held for her, and of which he had just spoken in tones that were tremulous with hopeful expect- ancy. And then, mastering by a mighty effort the shock that his unexpected words had caused, she had answered him with the question, so wierd in its realism as to be almost grotesque, that appears above. For an instant Harold seemed dazed by the girl's words, and stood silently beside a marble statue of Psyche, striving to repress the terrible grief that threatened to master every emotion of his being. As he stood there, the long evening shadows slanting across the sward and the purple mists of Indian summer crowning the hills with their royal haze, he felt that life without the love of this woman should be a Sahara of grief, an endless desert of disappointed hope and crushed ambition, over which I 4 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. the scorching winds of sorrow and anguish would ever blow with pitiless fury. And then, just as a sob was welling up from his vest, he felt a pair of soft, warm arms twined lovingly around his neck, and close beside his own there was pressed a cameo face that seemed in its spirituelle beauty like a vision from another world. There were tears in the violet eyes that looked into his so pleadingly, and the curves of the drooping mouth were tense with the agony of an all-powerful sorrow. For an instant neither spoke, and Gwendolen was the first to break the silence. "You must have known, Harold," she said, in tones that were hoarse with agony, " that for months my heart has been in your keeping, and you must also have known that my love is no ephemeral passion no let-me-take- your-slate-pencil-and-you-can-chew-my-gum-at-recess affection that is here to-day, and to-morrow where is it? And yet, despite this fact, which I so freely acknowledge, and of which I am more than proud, I can never be your wife." "Why not?" he asks, in tones that are almost a sob. "Because," answers Gwendolen, "I have cold, Boston feet." LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 15 A SOCIAL QUESTION SETTLED. " Is the society editor in? " asked a rather pretty lady, as she swung the door of the editorial rooms gently open, one summer afternoon. Nobody noticed her for a moment. But finally, the trotting-horse statistician, who was explaining to the dramatic critic why " Muldoon's Picnic " was a greater drama than " Daniel Rochat," became aware of the presence of one of the gentle sex, and waved his some- what profuse hand in the general direction of a chair, the movement being understood as an invitation to be seated. The young lady accepted the proffered hospi- tality, and remained silent. " It's no use talking," continued the horse editor, resuming his conversation with the dramatic critic, "you ducks that come raw from a college and fall against a newspaper office, thinking that you are too fly for any use, are just as liable to make a break as anybody else. If ' Daniel Rochat ' is a good play, I'm a Chinaman, and that settles it. Now, look at the heroine that Henderson girl. She's gone on Dan, ain't she?" The dramatic critic admitted that such was the case. "And Dan," continued the horse editor, "is just loony about her. Everything is lovely. The old lady doesn't buck-jump or drive on one line, as old ladies are apt to do when anybody wants to marry a girl of theirs, and there is no old man to steer clear of, or dog to poison, or anything that generally makes it tough work for a fellow to catch a girl these times. They get the word trotting 1 6 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. level, and go down to the quarter-pole like a double team, don't they? " The critic nodded assent. " What does Dan think what has he got a right to think? He says to himself: ' Here is a girl that it will do to buy pools on. She ain't going to break, or strike a pace. A man can go through life with her at any gait he likes, and if somebody knocks a spoke out once in a while, or pinches him a little too close to the pole, she won't dive into the fence and break her check-rein, and like enough get distanced.' That's the kind of talk Dan gives himself, ain't it?" "It is possible that you are correct," replied the critic, "although I must confess that at Yale "Never mind about Yale; we are on Dearborn street, this afternoon," said the repository of information con- cerning Maud S. " What I want to get at is that Sardou was chewing on the wrong apple when he wrote the play. This Henderson girl is mashed on Dan and wants to marry him. They paw around for a couple of acts, and finally the date for the performance is fixed. The fellow with the red sash he joins 'em according to the civil code. Then the girl says the race is a mile and repeat, so to speak, and expects the preacher to marry 'em again. Dan says, not much; no preacher in his. Girl cries and grabs him by the neck, and bur- rows in his shirt front with her nose, but Danny doesn't weaken. ' No parson for me,' he says. ' I love you fondly, madly, but I am not a chump.' The girl bursts out crying and leaves him. Next day Dan wants to hedge, and says he'll go the whole racket, church and all. Then the girl says she's changed her mind and LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 17 doesn't love him any more. Now, in 'Muldoon's Pic- nic ' " "Excuse me, gentlemen," said the young lady, "but which one of you is the society editor?" "We don't keep one on this paper, Miss," said the horse critic, "but the entire outfit takes a crack at that style of journalistic labor once in a while. Is there any- thing we can do for you?" "I was going to ask," said the girl, "if it would be too much trouble for you to give me some hints as to the proper way to receive and dispose of guests at a wedding; how the supper should be served, and-so-forth." " You want to know what is en riggle and recherchy, as the French say," remarked the horse man. "We can give you the correct pointer. Are you the blushing bride?" "Yes, sir," said the girl, in a rather weak voice; "that is " "Oh, I understand," said the horse editor. "I appre- ciate your feelings. I was once young and bashful myself. Now, about this wedding. The receiving part is easy. After the nuptial ceremony is concluded, you and Mike " " But his name isn't Mike," said the young lady. " His name is " " Oh, I know all about that," said the equine journalist. " Of course his name is Adelbert, or Reginald, or some other dry-goods-clerk nonsense, but in giving advice we always allude to the sucker as Mike, and call the bride Hannah. It saves time. Now, after you and Mike are married, you want to jog along home and plant your- selves at the back end of the parlor. Better have a !8 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. floral bell, or something like that to stand under, because it is considered the correct thing, and makes a better toot ensemble, as the French say. Then, the guests, they get in line and go by you on a slow walk a kind of we- buried-him-sadly-by-dead-of-iiight clip, and you shake hands with each one and say, 'Thanks, awfully'; and they look at you and Mike as if you were a couple of prize cattle, and feel sorry for you." "And the supper?" said the young lady. " Oh, yes, the supper. Well, at some weddings they feed in the dining-room, and at others each guest sits on a chair and has his lunch brought to him. Now, I always advise the use of chopped feed at weddings bring on the ham sa'ndwiches and ice-cream at the same time. They can't eat the sandwiches first, you know, because if they do the cream will melt, and if they throw in the cream to start with the sandwiches will act like Banquos Ghost they 'will not down';" and the horse reporter winked vigorously at the dramatic critic, in order to attract the attention of that person to his able joke. But the critic was trying to smoke a cigar that the ad- vance agent of the whale had given him, and did not look. "Of course," continued the biographer of Goldsmith Maid, "it would be better if you could give each guest a box-stall and throw the feed in early in the evening, but this is not often practicable, so you had better keep on the old racket." "I am sure I am very thankful,' sir, for the interest you have taken in this matter," said the girl, "and I shall follow your advice. Which is the way down stairs, please?" LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 19 "There are two ways," replied the horse reporter. "You can jump down the hatchway, or take the stairs. Our elevator never runs." SHE GOT THE HAT. It was a gray-haired editor Sat silent in his room, And strove with shears and pen and brain To work him up a boom. In came a charming, blue-eyed maid, Her hair a silv'ry sheen; Full many a young and manly heart This girl had smashed, I ween. She stepped up to the editor And said, " Good sir, I hear That to the tales of injured wives You lend a willing ear." "Just so, my bonny lass," he said, " Sit ye in yon arm-chair; Tis sad a man should club a bride So new, and fresh, and fair." " No, no, good editor," quoth she, " Not under club I quake. And you're a horrid, nasty thing. To make so bad a break. " My hubby, as of sour mash Or life, of me is fond, And every eve his manly arm .My waist encircles round. 20 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. " His cruelty consists in this: He absolutely says That I shall never, never, wear The new hat, called ' The Fez'! " And with these words a silent tear Coursed down her pearly cheek. Heaven knows the brawny editor As any child was weak. " The heartless villain! " cried he out, ' ' To wound a tender heart : Small wonder that you weeping sit; But I will take your part." " Go hence unto your wicked spouse, And say to him that I Have sent by thee these warning words- Then notice him ki-yi. " Say that, unless he gives you leave The gaudy ' Fez' to wear, My columns tell of how he fought The tiger in his lair." The happy bride went sailing forth She made the awful bluff; The husband fell upon his knees He could not say enough. The " Fez" was bought, and often now The editor, so gray, Smiles blandly as it past him goes, Bound for the matinee. LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 21 THE LOVES OF THE MULCAHEYS. "So, Constance has given him the shake?' "Yes." " Tis well the Lady Gertrude hath not heard of this, else were it better for Reginald that the broad demesne o'er which he rules so haughtily held lightly in its grass- covered bosom his pallid corse. The proud, vindictive spirit of the Mulcaheys will not brook an insult, and, by my halidom! 'twere well for the young Lord of Tomp- kinsville that he wear a steel corselet o'er his perjured heart this night ere the steel-shod hoofs of his palfrey are heard crossing the drawbridge that leads to the Castle Mahoney. Mark you this, Wilifred, 'tis not a light offense that one, e'en though he be young, and rich, and handsome, step in between a Mulcahey and the one he loves." It was Miriam McCarthy, eighth Duchess of Conne- marra, who spoke these words, and Wilifred O'Brien gazed at her with a sad earnestness as she leaned grace- fully over the back-yard fence, her sunny countenance flecked here and there by a dash of soap-suds, whose delicate whiteness brought out in bold relief the vivid colors on her roseate complexion. Wilifred was a pale, intellectual youth, and prided himself on his noble an- cestry. Once he had said to the Jones boy (whose folks had always lived in this country): "I am the descendant of a noble race. The blood of three kings flows in my veins." But the Jones boy had only laughed in his coarse, brutal way, and replied that some day a man would come along with a flush and capture the three 22 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. kings. Wilifred had brooded over this and other evi- dences of the barbarism that was continually outcrop- ping in the lives of the poor, plebeian Americans whom he was compelled sometimes to meet, and his naturally sunny disposition had become so soured that he would often put down the hod and mutter strange oaths to him- self, taking no heed of aught that was passing in the busy world around him until a chunk of plaster from the hand of the head bricklayer flew merrily in his direction, and he hastened to relieve the Duke of Galway, who should have been two places below him on the ladder. He loved Miriam McCarthy with a wild, passionate, soul- melting love that, like the mighty glaciers of the Alps, bore on its outward surface no indication of the tremen- dous force within. Two years ago she had first seen him as he walked with his proud, County Antrim stride along the streets amid the blare of trumpets, the rattle of drums, and the graceful and fiery prancing of the tem- porarily-off-duty omnibus horses, as the United Sons of Hibernia swept with stately grace past her ancestral home on Archer avenue. " I do not care," she said softly to herself, blushing as she spoke, " if he has got his grandfather's plug hat on; to me he is all that is noble, and manly, and pure, and good." Two weeks later they had plighted their troth, and were now looking forward with all the rosy hopefulness of youth to the halcyon days when they would be forever bound together by the holy tie of matrimony, and a dim- pled babe coo forth merrily its dulcet cries when the colic came like a thief in the night and the paregoric bottle had vanished into the deep mystery of the hereafter. LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 23 "Are you going to the wake this evening?" It was thus that Pizarro McGinness, the young Earl of Ballyhooly, spoke to Miriam McCarthy two hours after the above conversation had taken place. "Who's the corpse?" asked Miriam, a bright smile illumining her features at thought of the unexpected society event which had come to her. "Cecil Clancarty," replied Pizarro. Miriam's heart beat a great throb. " So, then," she thought, "this proud beauty who won my brother's love two summers ago, only to cast it aside when the picnic season was over, as carelessly as papa slings his dinner- pail into the corner when he returns in the gloaming from the horse-railway barns, is dead? She did not care, when my golden-haired Rupert came home full as a tick and carefully placed his boots on the etagere, before retiring. The poor boy's heart was breaking for love of her, but she laughed his suit to scorn; and now she has died amid all her follies, and sin, and six-button kid gloves." Then, mastering the emotion which momentarily almost over- came her, Miriam turned to Pizarro and said: "What happened her?" "Aneurism of the heart, I believe," was the reply. "You don't say so!" exclaimed Miriam. "I always said she would kill herself some day, the way she pow- dered and painted." "Well," said the young man, a trifle impatiently, "will you be there to-night?" "Yes, I'll come." "And may I escort you home?" " I will see you later on that point," was the witty res- ponse; and, with a light, merry ha-ha-villain-I-scorn-your- 24 LAKESIDE MUSINGS proffered-suit laugh on her lips, Miriam sprang lightly from the ash-barrel on which she was seated, and began to shoo geese out of the front yard. ******* " I can not allow you to go home with me, Mr. Mc- Ginnis," said Miriam, as she left the wake. "Why not?" "Because my betrothed, Mr. O'Brien, has told me that you are lacking in the suvoir vtvre, which every truly-cul- tured gentleman should possess; in other words, you are a 'far down.' " "If I had him here," hisses the young man through his clenched teeth, "methinks my wealth of box-toed boot would toy with his custom-made pants awhile." "Would it, indeed?" said a voice from the steps of a neighboring sour-mash emporium. " Then defend your- self as best you may." Each man spat on his hands and sailed in. As they rolled around on the sidewalk, Miriam shrank in terror to the side of the building. The men fought as only those nerved by desperation can fight. Suddenly they disappeared from view, a dull thud being the only clew to their whereabouts. One glance, and the girl saw all. They had fallen through a coal-hole. LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 25 THE OTHER MOZART. It is the 20th day of July a day when the sky is one cloudless sheet of azure, and the sun shines down upon the brown earth with an intensity that promises to change the tasseled corn in one day from golden yellow to harvest brown. Vivian and Myrtle are walking slowly down the grassy dell where blossom in rich abundance delicate lilies of the valley, pink orchises, old-fashioned bachelor's-but- tons, blue veronica, and golden celendine, wild convol- vulus and sweet honeysuckle. They are strolling hand in hand now, having but just left McMurtry Hall, whose turrets and buttresses gleam in the morning sun with a brightness and cheeriness that form a striking contrast to their solidly sullen appearance as they beat off the snows of January or the fierce rain-storms of the early spring. For nearly a twelvemonth these two have been betrothed. It was in the soft, sensuous days of the Indian summer that Vivian had told Myrtle his love. He remembered the hour well. It was the day after Maud S. had beaten the record, and Vivian was broke. When a little boy sitting on his father's knee, his tangled yellow hair falling like a golden halo on the ancestral vest, his sire had told him that time waited for no man. Vivian remembered this, and when he had grown into sturdy manhood, and Maud S. started against the record, all his pools were on time. He learned too late when the cold, green waves of adversity were rolling over his soul and some luckier sucker had all his money, that an adage was no better than any other pointer. But in those 2 6 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. sad, bitter days the love of Myrtle had come to him as does water to the parched traveler through the desert, and beckoned him to the mystic dreamland of a pure affection. He had been a wild, reckless boy, not bad at heart, but with a scornful contempt of the hollow, glit- tering world of fashion in which he moved the beauti- ful women who trifled with men's hearts as a child plays with pretty toys, the bright smile that concealed a can- kered heart, or the merry laugh that hid from all the world a beaten four-flush. Into this life Myrtle Mc- Murtry had come like a revelation. He had seen her at a soiree dansante given by the Chicago Historical Society, and noticed her bright, ingenue face, as she stood, fair and stately as a japonica, against the wall. They were introduced by Bertie Cecil. " Do you love music? " she asked. "Passionately," replied Vivian. "I can whistle 'The Skids are Out To-day,' perfectly, and I never heard it be- fore last week." " How quite," said Myrtle. "Altogether too-too," was the answer, in low soft tones that made the girl feel instantly that he loved her. "They tell me you are very wicked, Mr. Simpson," said Myrtle, as the sound of a Strauss waltz floated in from the ball-room. " Is it so? " "Well, I have always tried to keep up with the proces- sion," was his answer. " I suppose you will hate me for that?" "Oh no," responded the girl quickly. "It is the namby-pamby men that are distasteful to me. I like a man whose blood runs wine, not water." Vivian did not answer. " If she had said sour mash LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 27 instead of wine," he murmured to himself, "I could have a front seat in her affections." "Do you like Mozart?" she asked, suddenly. " No," said Vivian. " I lost eighty dollars on him when he was beaten in a mile-dash at Saratoga last week." "Can I ever love this man?" asked Myrtle of herself as they parted that night. " Can I give my soul to one who doesn't know the great composer from a three-year- old colt?" ******* Two weeks later they were betrothed. THE BEAUTIFUL SNOW. Oh! the snow, " The Beautiful Snow! " Filling the papers where'er we go; Over the latest news, over the "ads," Over the cut of the last liver pads; Solid, Leaded, Knocked into " pi," " Beautiful Snow " evermore meets the eye. Flying to kiss the waste-basket's cheek, Lunched on by goats in a frolicsome freak. " Beautiful Snow," coming in by each mail, Makes every editor quake and turn pale. Oh! the snow, " The Beautiful Snow!" How all the people that wrote it, blow; Claiming each verse as their own priceless gem- Nemesis waits for the last one of them. Writing, Lying, Always on hand, 2 8 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. As proud as a colt in the rear of a band; And even the dogs, with a bark and a bound, Sniff the air in disdain when a poet's around. The town is alive, and a mighty poor show Would be given the author of " Beautiful Snow." How the wild crowd goes swaying along, Each with a copy, well kept, of the song; How the smart critics mount four flights of stairs, Tackling the editor in squads and in pairs. Puffing, Blowing, Up-stairs they go To tell what they know about " Beautiful Snow." " Constant Subscriber" is there from Racine, " Reader," "Scrutator," and "Vindex," I ween. Then to them all speaks the editor bold: " Don't get rattled; it's you, and not me, that's been sold. " Once I was pure as the snow but I dropped; Dropped like the snowflake until I was stopped; Dropped, till the sidewalk and I coalesced; Dropped, as the red sun was sinking to rest. Cursing, Snorting, Dreading to rise, With anguish at heart and with tears in my eyes. Mourning the fate that had landed me there, Chilled by the blasts of the keen winter air. Merciful God! what a terrible blow To slip and fall down on the beautiful snow. " How strange it should be that this beautiful verse. 'Stead of making men better should make them all worse! How strange it would be if, in Christmas-tide's glow, We should find the real author of " Beautiful Snow" Fainting, Freezing, Dying alone; LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 29 Would we give him a crust, or a well-polished bone? Not much! we would instantly kill him, and then Wrap him up in the work of his misguided pen. Let us get out our shotguns and cheerfully go On a hunt for the man that wrote ' Beautiful Snow.' " HER TENDER VOICE. "But papa! " "Not another word," said the eighth Duke of Blue Island Avenue, as his dinner-pail fell on the floor with a decisive clank. " Your mother hath erstwhile told me of this foolish passion of yours for Rudolph McCloskey, but by my " Stepping hastily to an ebony desk inlaid with, dirt, the Duke glanced for an instant into a large book that lay there, and then resumed his position in front of the/att- teuil upon which Beryl was reclining. "By my halidom!" he continued, "I will bend this haughty will of yours to my own, for never shall it be said that a daughter of the house of Perkins allied her- self with one far beneath her in the social scale. No," he said, his features whitening with passion as he saw the girl, an insouciante expression on her pure young face, re- garding him with a half-scornful, half don't-care-whether- school-keeps-or-not look " I will prevent this marriage of which you speak so confidently, though it cost me my fortune and my life. What ho! Without there! A horse- car! " A liveried servant ran at once to the front yard and signaled the Warder, who was seated in his tower at the 3 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. castle gate. Presently a horse-car was seen in the dis- tance. Nearer and nearer it came, but still the Warder made no sign. At last, when the car was nearly opposite the castle moat, the vigilant servitor threw a handful of oats on the track. The car stopped. ******* When Beryl heard her father swear by his halidom that he would prevent her marriage, her heart sank within her, and into her eyes there came a wild, haunting, I- shall-not-get-a-new-polonaise-this-spring look, that told all too plainly of the horrid fears that beset her soul. But amid all the tumult of her mind she did not for- get to act. Looking hurriedly at an almanac, she saw that it was December. The eastern sky was gray with snow-clouds. Should her father miss the car, Rudolph would be safe from his anger for a week, perhaps longer. In an instant, her mind was made up. Running with frantic speed out across the lot, over the bed where the cabbages had nestled so cozily in the warm June sun- shine, she soon reached the entrance to the grounds and was peering with anxious face through the portcullis. The car-horses, a magnificent pair of bays, were eating the oats. Beryl could plainly see that ere they had finished their meal her father would be there. But she did not hes- itate, and in an instant the sad, sweet strains of a childish melody she had learned at school were floating out upon the air, and mingling with these echoes was the crash of timber and the wild jangling of bells. Beryl turned away with a satisfied air, saying softly to herself, " He is saved. ' The car-team had run away. LAKESIDE MUSINGS, 31 THE MODERN OBITUARY. "Want an obituary?" A rather short man, whose naturally cheerful face wore a look of studied grief that was in strange contrast to the ruddy glow of his cheeks, stood in the doorway and propounded this interrogatory in a cheery tone of voice. "Has another old citizen passed away?" inquired the horse reporter. " I never knew one of them to die," he continued, "but every little while a passing away occurs." "The deceased," said the man in the doorway, "was certainly an old resident, and I may say that for purity of" "Oh, I know what you are going to say," interrupted the horse reporter. "You were about to remark that, 'for purity of purpose, strict fidelity to the principles that ever guide the man of honor and probity in dealing with his fellow-men, our friend whose loss we mourn stood preeminent among his business associates.' Isn't that it?" "That is certainly the tenor of what I had in mind, but there are other things to be said about the deceased. He was an aff " "You bet he was," said the horse reporter. "I know all about that, too. ' He was an affectionate husband, a kind parent, and nowhere will his loss be more keenly felt than within the hallowed spot where human love is ever strongest, human sorrow ever the most poignant the sacred precincts of the domestic circle.' Ain't that it ?" "Well, I certainly did intend to say something like LAKESIDE MUSINGS. that," replied the short man, "but that wasn't all. In the hum " " That's right," again interrupted the friend of Maud S. " ' In the humbler walks of life, where Poverty boldly stalks, where Crime is found, and where Disease marks with its gaunt finger countless victims whose lives would otherwise be bright and joyous, our friend who is now no more was often to be found, giving freely of the means with which a kind Providence had endowed him to alleviate the sufferings of those whom misfortune had ever held within its iron grip.' Doesn't that about cover what you were going to tell me?" "Yes," said the short man, "that's something like it; but now that Death ' "You're right again. 'But now that Death has stilled with his icy breath the heart that such a little time ago was pulsating with all the vigor of healthful manhood, and laid prone beneath his silent but irresistible blow the rugged form that had withstood so bravely the assaults of time, there is nothing left to us but a pallid tenement of clay frail emblem of the proud structure so instinct with life teaching to all of us with mourn ful directness the sad lesson that in the midst of life we are in Milwaukee no, in death, I mean and that this sad event should impress upon us all the necessity of being prepared to jump town no, that ain't it should impress upon us all the necessity of being pre- pared to meet with a clear conscience the summons that calls us away from a life of turmoil and trouble to one where white-robed Peace stretches forth her broad wings, where sorrow and strife are unknown, and where our departed brother now awaits our coming.' LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 33 How does that size up with what you were about to re- mark?" "Why, that's it exactly," said the visitor, a sunny smile overspreading his countenance. ''You've got it down pretty fine, haven't you?" " I should surmise that I had," replied the horse re- porter. "I dropped into this obituary racket early in the action, and if anybody can ring one in on me he can have the bun." "I guess I won't print this obituary," said the visitor. " The deceased was only a New Jersey man, anyhow, and they say he never more than half provided for his family, and went to lodge about five nights in the week. Some said he removed to this State from the Penitentiary, but I don't know anything about that. He's dead, anyhow, and dead men can't do anybody much good, can they?" "Not a great deal," replied the horse reporter. "Well, so long," said the short man. "Bon jour," responded the horse reporter. "I don't know what bon jour is, but I heard the literary editor say it the other day, and he's far too fly to make any mistakes." A WOMAN'S SPEECH. " Kiss me, darling." Richard Irwin had toiled slowly and wearily up the two flights of stairs which led to the poor abode, whose scanty furniture had grown still more scanty as want and poverty clutched with iron grip his whole existence, as if they would throttle even the faint ray of hope that 3 34 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. sometimes sprang up in his heart, and looked long and lovingly into the pale but beautiful face of the girl who had given up parents, home and everything that had made life happy, to become his wife. And as she stood there, her soft, white arms twined lovingly around his neck, and her deep, hazel eyes upraised to his, he saw that she had been weeping, and around the wan, droop- ing lips that in the happy bygone days were so often raised, pouting merrily the while, to be kissed by his own, there were traces of pie. Richard Irwin shuddered as he drew the lithe, yield- ing form still more closely to him, and as her head nest- led confidingly on his clavicle his face was bent forward and he wept bitter, scalding tears of pain to think that his wife, Clyde Stiggins, Boston born and bred a girl who habitually read Emerson, and whose essay on the theory of horizontal cleavage in red sandstone was only excelled by her paper on the fauna of the pliocene period should be reduced to eating pie in the morning. And while he was wrapped in these painful reveries, Clyde raised her head from his bosom. One glance told her all. "You are suffering, my darling," she said. "Can you not tell me, your wife, of your sorrow? " "It is nothing," Richard replied, kissing her tenderly. "Lemon pie, too," he murmured, in hoarse, agonized tones, as his lips left hers. "My God! this is terrible." " But mastering his emotion in an instant, he turned again to Clytie. " It is of no use, sweetheart," he said. "I have walked the streets for weeks vainly searching for work. Winter is coming on, and what is to become of us is more than I know." LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 35 " It is always darkest before the dawn, my precious," she murmured, "and, no matter what betide, I have you" and drawing his face to hers she kissed him in a wild, passionate, grab-the-chair-if-you-want-to-stay-there man- ner that reminded him of early days on the North Side. "But you can't eat me" he began, and then stopped suddenly, saying softly to himself : "I don't know. It might come to that. Lemon pie in the morning" and he sank into a chair. Just then a noise, as of some one dragging himself slowly and wearily up the stairs, was heard. Presently it ceased, and a messenger-boy kicked open the door, and walking to where Richard Irwin sat, handed him a tele- gram. He tore open the envelope with trembling hands and. read the message, the boy looking over his shoulder to see that everything was all right. "We are saved, Clytie," he said in low, broken tones. "Your father is dead, and all his mackerel fishery is yours." "Yes," murmured the girl, kneeling beside the chair on which her husband sat. "We are saved, Richard saved by a canthopterygian fish of the scomberoid family. Its body is fusiform, its first dorsal fin continu- ous, and its branchiostegal rays are seven in number" and then, looking up suddenly, she saw that the man she loved so well, and for whom she would have sacrificed her life, was lying cold and pulseless across the chair. She had talked him to death. 36 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. LOVE'S STRATAGEM. "Pass the cake." These words, spoken in imperious tones by Rosalind McGuire, floated diagonally across the parlor to where Pansy Perkins was seated on a fauteuil conversing with George W. Simpson. Pansy was looking even lovelier than usual, the gaslight, softened and made less garish by the tinted shades through which it came, bringing out in all its beauty the peachy complexion for which the Perkinses of Perkinsville had long been noted. " Were you ever in Marietta, Ohio? " she asked, bend- ing her face as she spoke so close to that of George that a little vagrant tress of her sunny hair swept across his forehead, making him feel as if he had suddenly taken hold of the handles of an electrical machine. " No," he replied, " I never was in Marietta, but I have an aunt who used to live in Cleveland." " How strange," said'Pansy. "My father once knew a man who had been in Cleveland." And so they chatted on, unmindful of the fact that just across the room there sat a woman beautiful, but with cold feet, whose eyes were never taken from them, and in whose heart the fires of jealousy were raging in all their lurid fierceness. Rosalind McGuire loved George W. Simpson with all the passionate fervor of a high-born woman whose heart, attacked in vain by countless suitors, suddenly pours out unbidden all the hidden treasures of its love. Such a love is terrible in its intensity, and only those who have seen a three-base hit made in the ninth inning can realize the agony to which a woman, loving LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 37 thus, is subjected when she sees the object of her passion bending tenderly over another and whispering words that can never be recalled. The sight of George W. Simpson making love to a girl who didn't have an invisi- ble net to her name was more than Rosalind could bear, and she went into the supper room. " Put some oysters near that hole in the wall," she said to a waiter, pointing with her jeweled hand to \hzportiere through which she has just passed. The man did as he was told. In a moment George and Pansy entered the room. "Would you like some oysters?" he said. "Oh, yes," replied Pansy. "I think they are just lovely." George placed before her a platter of Sevres ware on which the mollusks where heaped, and as the first one disappeared with a dull thud Rosalind smiled a cold, Boston smile, and felt that her hour of triumph was at hand. When the oysters were gone, Pansy looked up with a glad smile. "You are very kind, Mr. Simpson," she said, "and I shall not soon forget this night." " But the happy look had faded from the man's face, and his riant mouth was quivering with pain. " My heart is broken," he said softly to himself as he reached for a biscuit, "but it is better so than after I had told my love. If she eats that way at a party, what kind of a record would she get at home! " Ah! what indeed? 38 LAKESIDE MUSINGS. A MODERN PARABLE. A certain man went down from Chicago to Ohio, taking with him a return ticket, lest he fall against a Cincinnati wheat speculator and be robbed of that wherewith he would fain buy flour and gum shoes for his family, in the season of cold which cometh on those who live in Chi- cago from the tenth to the fourth month, and find him- self amid sinners and publicans, whose mercy is strained, even so fine that it would bother you some to discover it. And when he had reached Cincinnati he went to an inn, and gave to the landlord thereof three pieces of silver, saying, "No monkey business with me, Charlie; lam from Bitter Creek." And he who kept the inn marveled greatly, and said unto himself: "These be strange men that come from Chicago; never are they to be bilked by a hotel bill, and he who endeavoreth to outwit them is invariably headed off." But, nevertheless, he bethought himself of a Poker Game which was that night in the inn, and laughed to himself with exceeding great joy. Then arose the landlord and went unto the place called Bar, where of a certainty he should find the man from Chi- cago, and, approaching him, said: " There be in this inn, even in the third story thereof, a small party of prominent citizens which do play at the game called Draw-Poker. Perchance thou might, after much travail, secure a seat among them." And when the host of the inn had spake these words a witching smile did play around the lips of the Chicago man, and he answered, saying: " I am yet young, and of LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 39 a certainty far from mine home and family, and fearful lest I fall among thieves." But the landlord rebuked him, saying: "In this party whereof I speak are only Business Men, two being Colonels and one a Judge. Would you not think it an honor to play with these?" And the Chicago man was overcome, and said softly: "I should twitter," which being interpreted, means that he should blush to giggle. So they went up in that which is called Elevator until three stories were below them, and the landlord knocked softly on the door of a room in which a light gleamed brightly. And the door opened. And when the Chicago man had seated himself and bought of chips an hundred shekels' worth, he spake not, but drank heartily. And it came to pass that after many deals one of the Colonels did bet seven shekels; where- upon bet also the Chicago man a like amount, and did vanquish the Colonel, who had that which is called two pair. And when this had occurred thrice, the Colonel said unto the Judge: "He is playing them close to his stomach." And it was so. But presently there came to the Colonel a hand of ex- ceeding beauty and strength, being four aces. And he who held them was filled with glee and knew not fear, placing in the centre of the table great quantities of shekels. And when it came to that which is called the draw, the Chicago man took not of the cards, saying he was content. But the Colonel drew one with great boasting, telling, with intent to deceive the others, of how he would bet, if perchance he made a full, which is 4 o LAKESIDE MUSINGS. a hand of great strength, and capable of overcoming threes, or even a flush, but which can not prevail against fours. And having said these words, he wagered heav- ily of silver and gold, all of which the Chicago man did cover, and even betted more, whereupon put the Colonel also his watch and diamond on the table, and wagered them freely. And when all had been betted, the Chicago man said, " Straight flush," even as he spoke gathering unto himself all the treasures which the table held. And when he had placed in his pocket all the shekels, and in his shirt-front the diamond, and had adorned himself with the watch, he became suddenly sleepy and said: "I am too full to play well to-night. I will go to my bed." And he went. But those who were left did beat their breasts and cry out, saying: " How are we knocked around and par- alyzed by this stranger who cometh from Chicago and dresseth not in fine raiment, but who has of money great store and will wager it lavishly on a hand which can not be overcome. It were better we had remained this night with our wives and children. To-morrow night, how- ever, we will again play with him at the game called Poker, and compass him about with a cold deck, so that he shall be overthrown and cast down in spirit." But they wist not what they said. For in the morning the stranger departed from out their gates and came back to his wife, who fell upon his neck and kissed him. And he did kiss her on the cheek, saying; "Mary, you can order that sealskin." And she made answer and said: " Charlie, you're a darling; kiss me again. " LAKESIDE MUSINGS. 41 THE PERILS OF ORATORY. "Do you love me, Reginald?" The supper in connection with the/>/