Volume IX Part 12 (1/2)

Now, the question arises: Why should Lucy Putnam, or any other girl, take any interest in a man who was so thoroughly bashful that his trembling efforts to converse made the light quivering aspen look like a ten-ton obelisk for calmness? The reason was, and is, that woman has the same eye for babies and men. The more helpless these objects, the more interested are the women. The man who makes the highest appeal to a woman is he whose tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth and who does not know what to do with his hands in her presence. She must be a princess, he a slave. Each knows this premise is unsupported by facts, yet it is a joyous fiction while it lasts. James Trottingham Minton was not a whit bashful when with men. No. He called on Mr. Putnam at his office, and with the calmness of an agent collecting rent, asked him for the hand of his daughter.

”Why, Jimmy,” Mr. Putnam said good-naturedly, ”of course I haven't any objections to make. Seems to me that's a matter to be settled between you and Lucy.”

Jimmy smiled confidentially.

”I suppose you're right, Mr. Putnam. But, you see, I've never had the nerve to say anything about it to her.”

”Tut, tut. Nothing to be scared of. Nothing at all. What's the matter with you, young man? In my day, if a fellow wanted to marry a girl he wouldn't go and tell her father. He'd marry her first and then ask the old man where they should live.”

Mr. Putnam chuckled heavily. Mr. Putnam was possessed of a striking fund of reminiscences of how young men used to do.

”Of course, Mr. Putnam,” Jimmy said. ”But the girls nowadays are different, and a fel--”

”Not a bit of it. No, sir. Women haven't changed since Eve's time. You mustn't get woman mixed up with dry goods stores, Jimmy. Don't you know there's lots of fellows nowadays that fall in love with the fall styles?

Ha, ha!”

It was not all clear to Minton, but he laughed dutifully. His was a diplomatic errand, and the half of diplomacy is making the victim think you are in agreement with him.

”Yes, sir,” Putnam chuckled on, ”I'll bet that silk and ruffles and pink shades over the lamp have caused more proposals than all the dimples and bright eyes in the world. Eh, Jimmy? But you haven't proposed yet?”

”I did. You gave your consent.”

”But you're not going to marry me. You want Lucy. You'll have to speak to her about it.”

”Now look, Mr. Putnam, I can come to you and ask you for her, and it's the same thing.”

”Not by a hundred miles, my boy. If I told Lucy you had said that, she wouldn't be at home next time you called. The trouble with you is that you don't understand women. You've got to talk direct to them.”

Jimmy looked hopelessly out of the window.

”No; what you say to me and what I say to you hasn't any more to do with you and Lucy than if you were selling me a bill of goods. I like you, Jimmy, and I've watched your career so far with interest, and I look for great things from you in the future, and that's why I say to you to go ahead and get Lucy, and good luck to you both.”

Mr. Putnam took up some papers from his desk and pretended to be studying them, but from the tail of his eye he gathered the gloom that was settling over Jimmy's face. The elder man enjoyed the situation.

”Well, Mr. Putnam,” Jimmy asked, ”why can't you just tell Lucy for me that I have asked you, and that you say it's all right? Then when I go to see her next time, it'll all be arranged and understood.”

”Le' me see. Didn't I read a poem or something at school about some one who hadn't sand enough to propose to a girl and who got another man to ask her? But it wasn't her own father. Why, Jimmy, if you haven't courage enough to propose to a girl, what do you suppose will be your finish if she marries you? A married man has to have s.p.u.n.k.”

”I've got the s.p.u.n.k all right, but you understand how I feel.”

”Sure! Let me give you some advice. When you propose to a girl, you don't have to come right out and ask her to marry you.”

Jimmy caught at the straw.

”You don't?” he asked.

”Certainly not. There's half a dozen ways of letting her know that you want her. Usually--always, I may say--she knows it anyway, and unless she wants you she'll not let you tell her so. But if I wanted a short, sharp 'No' from a girl, I'd get her father to ask her to marry me.”

”Then you mean that I've got to ask her myself?”