Unto the other was given the order, “Put out
this fire, and bring me two palm-leaf fans and a pitcher
of ice-water.”
Then the young people were dismissed, and the elders
sat down to talk the sweet surprise over and make
the wedding plans.
Some minutes before this Mr. Burley rushed from the
mansion on Telegraph Hill without meeting or taking
formal leave of anybody. He hissed through his
teeth, in unconscious imitation of a popular favorite
in melodrama, “Him shall she never wed!
I have sworn it! Ere great Nature shall have
doffed her winter’s ermine to don the emerald
gauds of spring, she shall be mine!”
Two weeks later. Every few hours, during same
three or four days, a very prim and devout-looking
Episcopal clergyman, with a cast in his eye, had visited
Alonzo. According to his card, he was the Rev.
Melton Hargrave, of Cincinnati. He said he had
retired from the ministry on account of his health.
If he had said on account of ill-health, he would
probably have erred, to judge by his wholesome looks
and firm build. He was the inventor of an improvement
in telephones, and hoped to make his bread by selling
the privilege of using it. “At present,”
he continued, “a man may go and tap a telegraph
wire which is conveying a song or a concert from one
state to another, and he can attach his private telephone
and steal a hearing of that music as it passes along.
My invention will stop all that.”
“Well,” answered Alonzo, “if the
owner of the music could not miss what was stolen,
why should he care?”
“He shouldn’t care,” said the Reverend.
“Well?” said Alonzo, inquiringly.
“Suppose,” replied the Reverend, “suppose
that, instead of music that was passing along and
being stolen, the burden of the wire was loving endearments
of the most private and sacred nature?”
Alonzo shuddered from head to heel. “Sir,
it is a priceless invention,” said he; “I
must have it at any cost.”
But the invention was delayed somewhere on the road
from Cincinnati, most unaccountably. The impatient
Alonzo could hardly wait. The thought of Rosannah’s
sweet words being shared with him by some ribald thief
was galling to him. The Reverend came frequently
and lamented the delay, and told of measures he had
taken to hurry things up. This was some little
comfort to Alonzo.
One forenoon the Reverend ascended the stairs and
knocked at Alonzo’s door. There was no
response. He entered, glanced eagerly around,
closed the door softly, then ran to the telephone.
The exquisitely soft and remote strains of the “Sweet
By-and-by” came floating through the instrument.
The singer was flatting, as usual, the five notes
that follow the first two in the chorus, when the
Reverend interrupted her with this word, in a voice
which was an exact imitation of Alonzo’s, with
just the faintest flavor of impatience added:
