"Why," she said, "it was only a few months ago that he celebrated the anniversary of our marriage--our wooden wedding."
This was too much for her sister, who had spent several weeks with her at the time, to stand. "Wooden wedding, indeed!" she cried; "the only wooden wedding you had was when your brute of a husband came home and knocked you down with a chair!"
It is surprising what a different thing the world becomes when a fellow is in love. I don't want to be a silly ass just because the prettiest, dearest girl on the footstool said "yes" instead of the "no" I really deserved, but I must tell somebody how happy I am. If I had money enough and was a sort of czar at whom people couldn't laugh without arrest for _lese majeste_, I'd have all the church bells rung, fire salutes on the lake front and send up balloons with Helen's name on 'em in twenty-seven foot letters. Until I met Helen Heath I thought I should never marry; in fact, I considered myself immune. But I hadn't seen her three times before she had me under her thumb, and the minute a girl has a fellow there, he, strangely enough, wants her hand. And I'm to have it and her heart with it, and she--well, she's to have me and the fifty per that you dole out to me. Occasionally I have the blues, declare that I'm not fit for her and feel as I felt on the road when I finally buncoed some confiding grocer to order a bill of our goods.
I'm in a pretty tough dilemma, anyway, and unless you help me out I'll have difficulty in keeping my footing. When a fellow's head over heels in love and up to his ears in debt, it's certainly time for somebody to throw him a life-preserver. You, my dear father, can knock the cork jackets off all the coastguards in the service in this particular branch of the life-saving business, by just getting your fountain pen busy over a check-book. And how you would be repaid! We--and ours--would bless you far down the thundering ages. Think it over and cut your Boston visit short. I'm afraid for you in the Hub, anyway. You are very likely to get into trouble. Do you know, for instance, that it is believed by the best Boston families that capital punishment is a very light penalty for committing a solecism? Pray be careful. I do not wish to inherit through a tragedy.