''Then he would sue me for damages.''
''That would be nothing, if you got a few good cuts in on him.''
''Ethel,' I said, 'please follow me carefully. I should like dearly to cowhide him. and for the sake of argument we will consider it done Then comes the lawsuit. Then I get up and say that I beat him because he made me buy Standard Egg at 63 by telling me that his mother had some, when really the old lady had been dead for fifteen years. When I think of it in this way, I do not feel--''
'I know,' interrupted Ethel, 'you are afraid of ridicule. All men are.''
'Had Ethel insisted, I believe that I should have cowhided Mr. Beverly for her sake. But before his return our destinies were brightened. Copper had been found near Ethel's waste lands in Michigan, and the family business man was able to sell the property for seven hundred thousand dollars. He did this so promptly that I ventured to ask him if delay might not have brought a greater price. 'Well', he said, 'I don't know. You must seize these things. Blake and Beverly might have got tired waiting.'
''Blake and Beverly!' I exclaimed 'So they made the purchase. It Mr. Beverly back?''
''Just back. To tell the truth I don't believe they're finding so much copper as they hoped.''
'This turned out to be true. And I am not sure that the business man had not known it all the while. 'We looked over the property pretty thoroughly at the time of the Tamarack excitement,' he said. And in a few days more, in fact, it was generally known that this land had returned to its old state of not quite paying the taxes.'
'Then I paid my visit to Mr. Beverly, but with no cowhide. 'Mr. Beverly,' said I, 'I want to announce to you my engagement to Miss Ethel Lansing, whose Michigan copper land you have lately acquired. I hope that you bought some for your mother.''
'Those,' concluded Mr. Richard Field, 'are the circumstances attending my engagement which I felt might interest you. And now, Ethel, tell your story, if they'll listen.'
'Richard,' said Ethel, 'that is the story I was going to tell.'
** End **
