Tombstone epitaph., 1890-06-21
PoRT!ERES AND POPPING.
Curtcined Door-Ways as Obstacles in the
 Way of NIatrimouy.


 A few evenings ago, observes a Buff falo Courier writer, I said to my friend Dareal: Joseph, why haven't you mar ried7" The question seemed abrupt, ! admit, but tho moment was most pro- pitious. AS we sat in tho cozicst corner of the club room testing Q new and recompens1ng brand of cigars we talked awhile at random, and finally we, too, drifted to the subject of marriage in Buffals. We spoke of tho apparent re- luctanco of certain young men to do any thing but dawdle about tho objects of their adoration, and when Joseph said: ''Do not la T, perhaps it is not their fault" 1 put to him the startling question: Joseph, why don't you marry?" Joseph took several long pulls at his cigar before replying, but finally said, his eyes fixed on the ascending smoke: ''If you wish to know what has kept me from matrimony will teIf you. It is the portiere." stared.
 Joseph went on: 'In other words, it is because parlorS have no doors-because our modern houses are one vast whis- pering gallery in which the slightest sound is heard from one end to another. It is years since I have felt sure that I was absolutely alone with girl-an en- vironment necessary for sentimental demonstrations. But to particularize. It is not long since I became unusually interested in young woman of my ac- quaintance. Perhaps 1 was in love with her. If not, I know that might have become so. I paid her rather marked attention for nearly a year, but in my numerous visits to her house there was never an opportunity for any thing but the most formal conversation. Usually her father sat in the library across the hall in full hearing-if not in view-of us. No chance to shut door. At the parlor door-portieres; at the library door-portieres; at the dining-room door-portieres; and never an op- portunity for that sense of private tete- a-teto which gives man inspiration for sentimental deeds.
 ''Now it is my idea that the. time when mutual love is first acknowledged should be supreme moment in life ono to be made tho most of, and not to be thrown away by any such insensate proceeding as a proposal by letter, or even to be rislzed at unpropitious sea- sons, when interruption is probable or possible. Therefore, did not tell my love with papa reading his paper in the adjoining room, or with tho servant fumbling in the sideboard in tho dining room, with only thickness of curtain between her and us. 1 did not tell my love while all the doors were wide open and the sisters were active in tho upper halls, and I could hear tho brother in his room overhead dressing to go out. No, waited for some moment of assured privacy. It never came."
 There was long silence. "Well?" I said, at last. ''That is cll. Last sum- mcr tho young woman ill question made a visit to a provincial town whore she could shut the parlor door. While there she became engaged and was married last autumn"
 ''And that is courtship as she Is con- ducted in Buffalo, I sighed. ''That is tho state of things in nine houses out of ten where pay social visits, Said Joseph Dareal. And as I recalled tho homes of our wcdablo but unwedded maids con- cludod that Joseph was not wrong, and what is most needed by our young men is not cOuraro but ssa-chance"