PAGE 5
Harry Lossing
by
“That’s why you are become so well-dressed, Horatio; I wondered how you came to spruce up so!” interrupted Mrs. Ellis.
“It has been so blamed lonesome whenever she went to visit you, but yet I wouldn’t say a word because I knew what a good time she had; but if I had known that there was a confounded, long-legged, sniffy young idiot all that while trying to steal my daughter away from me!” In an access of wrath at the idea Armorer wrenched off the picket that he clutched, at which he laughed and stuck his hands in his pockets.
“Why, Meg, the papers and magazines are always howling that women won’t marry,” cried he, with a fresh sense of grievance; “now, two of my girls have married, that’s enough; there was no reason for me to expect any more of them would! There isn’t one d—- bit of need for Esther to marry!”
“But if she loves the young fellow and he loves her, won’t you let them be happy?”
“He won’t make her happy.”
“He is a very good fellow, truly and really, ‘Raish. And he comes of a good family—-“
“I don’t care for his family; and as to his being moral and all that, I know several young fellows that could skin him alive in a bargain that are moral as you please. I have been a moral man, myself. But the trouble with this Lossing (I told Esther I didn’t know anything about him, but I do), the trouble with him is that he is chock full of all kinds of principles! Just as father was. Don’t you remember how he lost parish after parish because he couldn’t smooth over the big men in them? Lossing is every bit as pig-headed. I am not going to have my daughter lead the kind of life my mother did. I want a son-in-law who ain’t going to think himself so much better than I am, and be rowing me for my way of doing business. If Esther MUST marry I’d like her to marry a man with a head on him that I can take into business, and who will be willing to live with the old man. This Lossing has got his notions of making a sort of Highland chief affair of the labor question, and we should get along about as well as the Kilkenny cats!”
Mrs. Ellis knew more than Esther about Armorer’s business methods, having the advantage of her husband’s point of view; and Colonel Ellis had kept the army standard of honor as well as the army ignorance of business. To counterbalance, she knew more than anyone alive what a good son and brother Horatio had always been. But she could not restrain a smile at the picture of the partnership.
“Precisely, you see yourself,” said Armorer. “Meg”–hesitating–“you don’t suppose it would be any use to offer Esther a cool hundred thousand to promise to bounce this young fellow?”
“Horatio, NO!” cried Mrs. Ellis, tossing her pretty gray head indignantly; “you’d insult her!”
“Take it the same way, eh? Well, perhaps; Essie has high-toned notions. That’s all right, it is the thing for women. Mother had them too. Look here, Meg, I’ll tell you, I want to see if this young fellow has ANY sense! We have an ordinance that we want passed. If he will get his council to pass it, that will show he can put his grand theories into his pockets sometimes; and I will give him a show with Esther. If he doesn’t care enough for my girl to oblige her father, even if he doesn’t please a lot of carping roosters that want the earth for their town and would like a street railway to be run to accommodate them and lose money for the stockholders, well, then, you can’t blame me if I don’t want him! Now, will you do one thing for me, Meg, to help me out? I don’t want Lossing to persuade Esther to commit herself; you know how, when she was a little mite, if Esther gave her word she kept it. I want you to promise me you won’t let Esther be alone one second with young Lossing. She is going to-morrow, but there’s your whist-party to-night; I suppose he’s coming? And I want you to promise you won’t let him have our address. If he treats me square, he won’t need to ask you for it. Well?”