Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1886-09-03
fooLlNc HIS WIFE.
How q Hungry Chicago Politician Man
aged to Secure an Elegant Dinner.
fChicaro Naval


at is only about twice y rear, )" remarked
State Senator William E. Mason, ssthat
am smart enough to fool my wife. Last
Monday l played q trick that ou .ht to
serve as capital suggestion for other
husbands to conduct operations ON. Along
about four O'Clock in the afternoon began
to get faint and hungry; had been working
hard all day and was as famished and az
tagged as a hunted wolf. AS sat In my
office chair wondering what was going
to find for dinner when got home an en-
tirely new and marvelously brilliant idea
flashed upon me. 1t broke upon my in
tellect much as a stray plank dances be-
fore the despairing vision of drowning
man. 1t made my mouth fairly water
as IL developed its details in my greedy
brain. 1 made a bee line for the tele-
phone and called the central Office.
"'Give me $685. sail 1, and then
chuckled all over, and my mouth kept on
watering.
"'Bur-r-r-r' went the telephone. I
put NV mouth close to the funnel, and in
a shrill falsetto voice asked is that Sena-
tor Mason's house:"
"'Yes,' cams the answer, and I rec og-
nized my wife at the other end of the
wire.
rs the Senator at homep I asked in
the same feminine voice.
"'No,' was the reply.
"'Weil, then, is Mrs Mason there:' I
inquired.
"'Yes, am Mrs. Mason was the an
swer.
"'oh, is that you,' criel; show do you
do9,
"'Why, how d'you do?' responded my
wife, but l knew by her tones that she
hadn't the remotest idea whom she was
talking to.
"'How are all the childreng asked.
They're all very well.' said wife.
"'Well,' said /, Il happened to be in
town shopping to-day and l thought I'd
go over to your house to dinner
swell, that sort of staggered wife. She
mustered up voice enough to ask 'Who are
you?'
"Then / answered: 'Why, don't YOU
recognize the voice! Pm Mrs. Mya-yahv
"'I don't catch the name-speak
louder she pleaded.
Mrs. Mya-yahv repeated, and with
that, in order to preclude all embarrassing
complications. 1 shut off the telephone as
tight as could. Then threw myself into
a chair and laughed till Ike to went into
apoplexy. Laugh? Well, you ought {,
have seen the plastering fall around me!
But, to make long story short, reached
home about n quarter to six, and of all the
dinners | ever clapped ewes on-gosh, it
was banquet! Wife had her new black
silk dress on, and she had slicked the chill
dren up so that could hardly identify
them.
81 think we'd better wait dinner awhile.
my dear said wife.
"'Why SOP asked. Bless YOU, I'm as
hungry as an alligatorv
"Then wife told me she was expectinp a
lady guest. and she repeated the details Of
the telephone talk of the afternoon. It
was a fearful ordeal, but l managed to
look innocent, and of course | wondered
who the lady could be.
Indeed, don't know, said wife. but
her voice was strangely familiar. five
been pgzzling myself nearly to death try
ing to guess who 1t was.'
"Well, we waited fifteen minutes and
then we sat down to that banquet-and a
royal feast it was! We had soup and fish
and a big roast and about a dozen little
side dishes, and wife had sent out and
bough a gallon of pink ice-cream and
frosted cake for desert. l stood it lust as
long as l could. When 1t came to the pink
ice-cream ] couldn't stand it any longer.
As was sIicing it off 1 looked at wife
kind Of sidewise and said in falset-
to voice: My dear, I'm sorry Mrs. Mya-
yah didn't comen
"Wife dropped her Dresden china coffee
cup as if she'd been paralyzed
"'William Z. Mason-you brutev she
gasped.
"rhe children enjoyed the joke quite as
much as / did-ves, and wife, too, got to
about it after awhile. Our boy
Louis said: 'Do it again, pa; it's mighty
jolly to have a big dinner once'n awhile.'
"But look here, you reDorter YOU aren't
taking notes on me? Come. come, now,
that's not right; you mustn't tell the story
on me. Put il on somebody elsc-put it on
Bill Campbellw