When that letter of Goward's was rescued from the chewing-gum
contingent, with its address left behind upon the pulpy surface of
Sidney Tracy's daily portion of peptonized-paste, it was thought best
that I should call upon the writer at his hotel and find out to whom
the letter was really written.
My own first thought was to seek out Sidney Tracy and see if the
superscription still remained on the chewing-gum, and I had the
good-fortune to meet the boy on my way to the hotel, but on questioning
him I learned that in the excitement of catching a catfish, shortly
after Alice had left the lads, Sidney had incontinently swallowed the
rubber-like substance, and nothing short of an operation for
appendicitis was likely to put me in possession of the missing exhibit.
So I went on to the hotel, and ten minutes later found myself in the
presence of an interesting case of nervous prostration. Poor Goward!
When I observed the wrought-up condition of his nerves, I was
immediately so filled with pity for him that if it hadn't been for
Maria I think I should at once have assumed charge of his case, and, as
his personal counsel, sued the family for damages on his behalf. He did
not strike me as being either old enough, or sufficiently gifted in the
arts of philandery, to be taken seriously as a professional
heart-breaker, and to tell the truth I had to restrain myself several
times from telling him that I thought the whole affair a tempest in a
teapot, because, in wanting consciously to marry two members of the
family, he had only attempted to do what I had done unconsciously when
I and the whole tribe of Talberts, remotely and immediately connected,
became one.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133