The Booming of Acre Hill And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life

A SUCCESSFUL CASE

  “The pleasantest angling is to see the fish
  ... greedily devour the treacherous bait.”
  —­Much Ado about Nothing.

The invitations to Mrs. Upton’s little dinner were speedily despatched by the strategic maker of matches, and, to her great delight, were one and all accepted with commendable promptness, as dinner invitations are apt to be.  The night came, and with it came also the unsuspecting young doctor and the equally unsuspicious Miss Meeker.  Everything was charming.  The Jacksons were pleased with the Peltons, and the Peltons were pleased with the Jacksons, and, best of all, Walter was pleased with Miss Meeker, while she was not wholly oblivious to his existence.  She even quoted something he happened to say at the table, after the ladies had retired, leaving the men to their cigars, and had added that “that was the way she liked to hear a man talk”—­all of which was very encouraging to the well-disposed spider who was weaving the web for these two particular flies.  As for Bliss—­Walter Bliss, M.D.—­he was very much impressed; so much so, indeed, that as the men left their cigars to return to the ladies he managed to whisper into Upton’s ear,

“Rather bright girl that, Henry.”

“Very,” said Upton.  “Sensible, too.  One of those bachelor girls who’ve got too much sense to think much about men.  Pity, rather, in a way, too.  She’d make a good wife, but, Lord save us! it would require an Alexander or a Napoleon to make love to her.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Bliss, confidently.  “If the right man came along—­”

“Of course; but there aren’t many right men,” said Upton.  “I’ve no doubt there’s somebody equal to the occasion somewhere, but with the population of the world at the present figures there’s a billion chances to one she’ll never meet him.  What do you think of the financial situation, Walter?  Pretty bad, eh?”

Thus did the astute Mr. Upton play the cards dealt out to him by his fairer half in this little game of hearts of her devising, and it is a certain fact that he played them well, for the interjection of a more or less political phase into their discussion rather whetted than otherwise the desire of Dr. Bliss to talk about Miss Meeker.

“Oh, hang the financial situation!  Where does she live, Henry?” was Bliss’s answer, from which Upton deduced that all was going well.

That his deductions were correct was speedily shown, for it was not many days before Mrs. Upton, with a radiant face, handed Upton a note from Walter asking her if she would not act as chaperon for a little sail on the Sound upon his sloop.  He thought a small party of four, consisting of herself and Henry, Miss Meeker and himself, could have a jolly afternoon and evening of it, dining on board in true picnic fashion, and returning to earth in the moonlight.

“How do you like that, my lord?” she inquired, her eyes beaming with delight.

“Dreadful!” said Henry.  “Got to the moonlight stage already—­poor Bliss!”

“Poor Bliss indeed,” retorted Mrs. Upton.  “Blissful Bliss, you ought to call him.  Shall we go?”

“Shall we go?” echoed Upton.  “If I fell off the middle of Brooklyn Bridge, would I land in the water?”

“I don’t know,” laughed Mrs. Upton.  “You might drop into the smoke-stack of a ferry-boat.”

“Of course we’ll go,” said Upton.  “I’d go yachting with my worst enemy.”

“Very well.  I’ll accept,” said Mrs. Upton, and she did.  The sail was a great success, and everything went exactly as the skilful match-maker had wished.  Bliss looked well in his yachting suit.  The appointments of the yacht were perfect.  The afternoon was fine, the supper entrancing, and the moonlight irresistible.  Miss Meeker was duly impressed, and as for the doctor, as Upton put it, he was “going down for the third time.”

“If you aren’t serious in this match, my dear, throw him a rope,” he pleaded, in his friend’s behalf.

“He wouldn’t avail himself of it if I did,” said Mrs. Upton.  “He wants to drown—­and I fancy Molly wants him to, too, because I can’t get her to mention his name any more.”

“Is that a sign?” asked Upton.

“Indeed yes; if she talked about him all the time I should be afraid she wasn’t quite as deeply in love as I want her to be.  She’s only a woman, you know, Henry.  If she were a man, it would be different.”

The indications were verified by the results.  August came, and Mrs. Upton invited Miss Meeker to spend the month at the Uptons’ summer cottage at Skirton, and Bliss was asked up for “a day or two” while she was there.

“Isn’t it a little dangerous, my dear?” Upton asked, when his wife asked him to extend the hospitality of the cottage to Bliss.  “I should think twice before asking Walter to come.”

“How absurd you are!” retorted the match-maker.  “What earthly objection can there be?”

“No objection at all,” returned Upton, “but it may destroy all your good work.  It will be a terrible test for Walter, I am afraid—­breakfast, for instance, is a fearful ordeal for most men.  They are so apt to be at their very worst at breakfast, and it might happen that Walter could not stand the strain upon him through a series of them.  Then Molly may not look well in the mornings.  How is that?  Is she like you—­always at her best?”

Mrs. Upton replied with a smile.  It was evident that she did not consider the danger very great.

“They might as well get used to seeing each other at breakfast,” she said.  “If they find they don’t admire each other at that time, it is just as well they should know it in advance.”

Hence it was, as I have said, that Bliss was invited to Skirton for a day or two.  And the day or two, in the most natural way in the world, lengthened out into a week or two.  There were walks and talks; there were drives and long horseback rides along shaded mountain roads, and when it rained there were mornings in the music-room together.  Bliss was good-natured at breakfast, and Molly developed a capacity for appearing to advantage at that trying meal that aroused Upton’s highest regard; and finally—­well, finally Miss Molly Meeker whispered something into Mrs. Upton’s ear, at which the latter was so overjoyed that she nearly hugged her young friend to death.

“Here, my dear, look out,” remonstrated Upton, who happened to be present.  “Don’t take it all.  Perhaps she wants to live long enough to whisper something to me.”

“I do,” said Molly, and then she announced her engagement to Walter Bliss; and she did it so sweetly that Upton had all he could do to keep from manifesting his approval after the fashion adopted by his wife.

“I wish I was a literary man,” said Upton to his wife the next day, when they were talking over the situation.  “If I knew how to write I’d make a fortune, I believe, just following up the little romances that you plan.”

“Oh, nonsense, Henry,” replied Mrs. Upton.  “I don’t plan any romances—­I select certain people for each other and bring them together, that is all.”

“And push ’em along—­prod ’em slightly when they don’t seem to get started, eh?” insinuated Upton.  “Well, yes—­sometimes.”

“And what else does a novelist do?  He picks out two people, brings them together, and pushes them along through as many chapters as he needs for his book,” said Henry.  “That’s all.  Now if I could follow your couples I’d have a tremendous advantage in basing my studies on living models instead of having to imagine my realism.  I repeat I wish I could write.  This little romance of Mollie and Walter that has just ended—­”

“Just what?” asked Mrs. Upton.

“Just ended,” repeated Upton.  “What’s the matter with that?”

“You mean just begun,” said Mrs. Upton, with a sigh.  “The hardest work a match-maker has is in conducting the campaign after the nominations are made.  When two people love each other madly, they are apt to do a great deal of quarrelling over absolutely nothing, and I’m not at all sure that an engagement means marriage until the ceremony has taken place.”

“And even then,” suggested Henry, “there are the divorce courts, eh?”

“We won’t refer to them,” said Mrs. Upton, severely; “they are relics of barbarism.  But as for the ending of my romance, my real work now begins.  I must watch those two young people carefully and see that their little quarrels are smoothed over, their irritations allayed, and that every possible difference between them is adjusted.”

“But you and I didn’t quarrel when we were engaged,” persisted Upton.

“No, we didn’t, Henry,” replied Mrs. Upton.  “But that was only because it takes two to make a quarrel, and I loved you so much that I was really blind to all your possibilities as an irritant.”

“Oh!” said Henry, reflectively.