Now I claim to have a little chivalry in me, as well as a little pride. So in spite of the fact that Florence has broadcast her grievances over the red and blue network both, I intend to keep mine to myself till death do me part.
But after I’m gone, I want some of my old pals to know that this thing wasn’t as lopsided as she has made out, so I will write the true story, put it in an envelope with my will and appoint Ed Osborne executor. He used to be my best friend and would be yet if his wife would let him. He’ll have to read all my papers, including this, and he’ll tell everybody else about it and maybe they’ll be a little sorry that they treated me like an open manhole.
(Ed, please don’t consider this an attempt to be literary. You know I haven’t written for publication since our days on The Crimson and White, and I wasn’t so hot then. Just look on it as a statement of facts. If I were still alive, I’d take a bible oath that nothing herein is exaggerated. And whatever else may have been my imperfections, I never lied save to shield a woman or myself.)
Well, a year ago last May I had to go to New York. I called up Joe Paxton and he asked me out to dinner. I went, and met Florence. She and Marjorie Paxton had been at school together and she was there for a visit. We fell in love with each other and got engaged. I stopped off in Chicago on the way home, to see her people. They liked me all right, but they hated to have Florence marry a man who lived so far away. They wanted to postpone her leaving home as long as possible and they made us wait till April this year.
I had a room at the Belden and Florence and I agreed that when we were married, we would stay there awhile and take our time about picking out a house. But the last day of March, two weeks before the date of our wedding, I ran into Jeff Cooper and he told me his news, that the Standard Oil was sending him to China in some big job that looked permanent.
“I’m perfectly willing to go,” he said. “So is Bess. It’s a lot more money and we think it will be an interesting experience. But here I am with a brand-new place on my hands that cost me $45,000, including the furniture, and no chance to sell it in a hurry except at a loss. We were just beginning to feel settled. Otherwise we would have no regrets about leaving this town. Bess hasn’t any real friends here and you’re the only one I can claim.”
“How much would you take for your house, furniture and all?” I asked him.
“I’d take a loss of $5,000,” he said. “I’d take $40,000 with the buyer assuming my mortgage of $15,000, held by the Phillips Trust and Mortgage Company in Seattle.”
I asked him if he would show me the place. They had only been living there a month and I hadn’t had time to call. He said, what did I want to look at it for and I told him I would buy it if it looked OK. Then I confessed that I was going to be married; you know I had kept it a secret around here.
Well, he took me home with him and he and Bess showed me everything, all new and shiny and a bargain if you ever saw one. In the first place, there’s the location, on the best residential street in town, handy to my office and yet with a whole acre of ground, and a bed of cannas coming up in the front yard that Bess had planted when they bought the property last fall. As for the house, I always liked stucco, and this one is built! You could depend on old Jeff to see to that.
But the furniture was what decided me. Jeff had done the smart thing and ordered the whole works from Wolfe Brothers, taking their advice on most of the stuff, as neither he nor Bess knew much about it. Their total bill, furnishing the entire place, rugs, beds, tables, chairs, everything, was only $8,500, including a mahogany upright player-piano that they ordered from Seattle. I had my mother’s old mahogany piano in storage and I kind of hoped Jeff wouldn’t want me to buy this, but it was all or nothing, and with a bargain like that staring me in the face, I didn’t stop to argue, not when I looked over the rest of the furniture and saw what I was getting.
The living-room had, and still has, three big easy chairs and a couch, all overstuffed, as they call it, to say nothing of an Oriental rug that alone had cost $500. There was a long mahogany table behind the couch, with lamps at both ends in case you wanted to lie down and read. The dining-room set was solid mahogany—a table and eight chairs that had separated Jeff from $1,000.
The floors downstairs were all oak parquet. Also he had blown himself to an oak mantelpiece and oak woodwork that must have run into heavy dough. Jeff told me what it cost him extra, but I don’t recall the amount.
The Coopers were strong for mahogany and wanted another set for their bedroom, but Jake Wolfe told them it would get monotonous if there was too much of it. So he sold them five pieces—a bed, two chairs, a chiffonier and a dresser—of some kind of wood tinted green, with flowers painted on it. This was $1,000 more, but it certainly was worth it. You never saw anything prettier than that bed when the lace spreads were on.
Well, we closed
