Page 70 - 1917 Hartridge

“ Tn the office where I was clerk— and a mighty poor one, too— I met Susan Cory, a stenographer. 7"he last $3,000 1 drew from you at
the end of my gay year, has been largely spent on a honeymoon with this dearest wife man ever had. We’re out West now, on our own farm. We’re ‘awfully’ happy, and I’m going to dig, dig, dig for her.
“ I say ‘Hang all that money of Uncle Will’s !’ I suppose he meant well but you can give it to ‘Long View’ without hurting my feelings in the least.”
There was more, but that is enough.
Lawyer Smith read it once, twice, and once again. Then he cracked his mouth into a smile, and searching his soul for a laugh, found one, dried but intact, which he finally emitted from his smiling mouth. A stenographer, alarmed by the unusual sound, came in bearing a glass of
water, but Smith waved her away and continued his dry cackling. He wrote of it to a friend,— another lawyer, but still a friend.
‘‘And, my dear Ezekiel, imagine my incredulity as I read that note; for, by a codicil of the will, William Asquith Penrose, Sr., provided for
a monthly allowance of $1,000, and an immediate payment of $50,000, to go to W. A. P., Jr. five years after he had married a working girl, who was also to receive the lump sum of $50,000. I'he codicil, of course, was
to remain unknown to the young man until he fulfilled the condition for himself. But he has been married only six months, and since it is still
four and a half years until he comes Into his own, I shall remain exceed­ ingly quiet and let him dig!
‘‘Dear Ezekiel, it is one of the most amusing things that has occurred In my long and varied practice.”
Meanwhile, W. A. P. Jr., was providing for the ‘‘dearest wife” and an addition to the family by raising alfalfa in an outlandish place in Kan­
sas. (Do they grow alfalfa in Kansas?) He wore overalls and a straw sombrero, and ate prodigiously of cabbage soup and the like.
But perhaps It was just as well.
Adp:le Louise De Eefuw.