Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 18, 1925 — page 166: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

316 tickled to death, thinking I’m married to you, the famous Mr. Larry Minot. Every time he comes into my room, just as I have the whole story on the tip of my tongue ready to blurt out, he begins raving about how happy he is that I chose a splendid young man like you. He goes on to remark that when he got my note he thought it must be that dastardly, scoundrelly snake- in-the-grass, Parker Peterson, but that he might have known I’d never break my poor old daddy’s heart by such a downright flouting of his wishes as that. He con- tinues in this vein for half an hour and then apologizes, actually begs my pardon, for having misjudged me so! And by the time he’s through that, we’re both weeping on one another’s shoulders and I haven’t the courage to tell him the truth! You see—” Interruption intruded in the person of Ann’s nurse. She was cheerful but de- termined. Mrs. Minot must get back into bed. It was too bad, she was sorry, but this was Mrs. Minot’s first day up and she mustn’t overdo it. They could talk again to-morrow. Ann was wheeled away, for all the world like a petulant, protesting, beautiful baby in its go-cart. Larry, left behind, gazed long at the spot where she had _ been. “<« Mrs. Minot,’ ” he repeated aloud several times. ‘‘‘ Mrs. Minot.’ ” He elaborated it experimentally. “ Mrs. Laurence Minot. Ann Minot. Ann Hale Minot.” “T’m a fool!” he jeered. ‘‘ She’s not Mrs. Minot, and she never will be.” It somehow didn’t sound nearly as posi- tive as it should have. ‘When he had been put back to bed, too, there came a note from her. It was brief— a mere ten words scribbled in pencil on a scrap of magazine-cover. “You must despise me,” it said. “I shall tell him surely to-night.” Larry spent several moments in deep concentration over this. Then he dis- patched his nurse to her room with the following reply: ‘I don’t despise you at all, and don’t tell him.” She wrote back, “ Why not? It’s not fair to you not to, is it?” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, This communication reached Larry’s bedside at the same time as his supper tray, and he chewed it, figuratively speaking, along with his mashed potato. When the nurse came to bear the tray away he ad- dressed her solemnly. “ Miss Ingalls!” ‘Would you like to take another mes- sage to—to my wife, by word of mouth this time?” She said she would. “Tell her,” commanded Larry, “ that I think Aun Hale Minot is about the best name I ever heard, and that it is beginning to establish itself in my mind with a kind of permanency.” There was no answer to this. Miss Ingalls returned to report that Mrs. Minot had seemed puzzled at first, and that then she had smiled. “You’re sure she smiled?” Larry queried. Miss Ingalls was quite sure. She rather expected more questions or more messages, but they were not forthcoming. Her patient smiled also, and seemed satis- fied. IV. “But how are we going to do it?” Ann said the next morning on the sun-porch. They had been there half an hour and much can happen in half an hour. “Easy!” Larry told her. “Il be out of here before you are, you know, and Ill get the license and make all the arrange- ments. Then the minute they let you out, we'll run off somewhere on the sly for the actual ceremony.” ‘“ Aren’t we ever going to tell my father?” “Why should we?” ‘Poor dad!” Ann mused smilingly. “‘ We did try to tell him in the beginning, both of us, and he thought we were delirious! Isn’t he ever to know how we put it over on him?” Then Larry Minot made a pun, a low and simply abominable pun which deserved to die aborning, but which actually lived to a green old age as a sort of tradition in that household. “Your dad,” he said, “ will always be a victim of delirium trimmings!” THE END Gomichbooks (<)