Arizona republican., 1892-11-23
A METHODICAL MAN.


 Love worketh wonders, as hath been said by various wise men before the present writer manipulated the sentence on his typewriting machine.
 It is remarkable that the T. P. (mean. ing the tender passion) should have turned the methodical mans methodic- alness to his undoing, as nearly hap pened in the case of MT. George Peters. Love should have nothing to do with a man during business hours. There ought to be placard to this effect hanging up in all well regulated business houses:
 
 Clerks in love are requested by the management not to think of the adored object between the hours of 9 a. m. and 6: :p.m. By Order.
 
 Now George Peters was 8 very me- thodical person for so young a man. When letter got into Peters hands it went through certain routine, and the answer departed from him to the copy ing book, and from the copying book to the envelope, and the envelope, letter and all, with inclosures marked, went into the letter box with regularity that nothing but the office clock could emu late, and even that, the clerks said, was not as regular as Peters, for they claimed it was always fast in the morning and mighty slow in pointing to 6 o'clock.
 It is little wonder, then, that Peters stood so high in the confidence of old man Bentham. Bentham was Bentham Bros. & Co. There were no brothers and no company-that was merely the firm name-it was all Bentham. Per haps there once were brothers and per haps there was once a company, but that is all ancient history anyhow, and has nothing to do with this strictly mod ern story. And it did not interfere with the fact that old Bentham's name was @ lovely thing to have at the bottom of a large check.
 The clerks never speculated on the probable effect of love on Peters because it never occurred to them that such a thing as Peters falling in love was with in the bounds of possibility. Love, they argued, was not an article that can be docketed and ticketed and referred back for further information and entered in the daybook and posted on the debit or credit side of ledger, so what on earth could Peters do with it if he had it? Manifestly nothing. If they had known as much about human nature as you or they would have surmised that when Peters did fall it was time to stand from under.
 And who should Peters fall in love with but the very woman of all others whom he ought never have given thought toAin other words. pretty little Miss Sadie Bentham, if you please. It made Peters himself cold when he thought of it, for he knew he had just as much chance of getting the moon or the laureateship as the consent of old man Bentham. The clerks always said that it was Miss Sadie who fell in love with Peters, principally, suppose, be- cause she should have known better, and l think myself there is something to be said for that view of the matter.
 Anyhow she came to her fathers place of business very often and apparently very unnecessarily, but the old man was always pleased to see her, no matter how busy he happened to be. At first she rarely looked at Peters, but when she did flash one of those quick glances of hers at him poor Peters thought he had the fever and ague. He understood the symptoms later on.
 l don't know how things came to climax; neither do the clerks, for that matter, although they pretend to. Be- sides, they are divided in their opinions, so l think their collective surmises amount to but very little. Johnson claims that it was done over the tele- phone, while Farnam says she came to the office one day when her father was not there and proposed to Peters on the spot. One thing the clerks are unani- nous about, and that is that Peters left to himself would never have had the courage. Still too much attention must not be paid to what the clerks say. What can they know about it? They are in another room.
 Peters knew that he had no right to think about that girl during business hours. He was paid to think about the old man and his affairs, which were not nearly so interesting. But Peters was conscientious, and he tried to do his duty. Nevertheless the chances are that unconsciously little Miss Sadie occu- pied some small portion of his mind that should have been given up to the concerns of Bentham Bros. 6 Co.,, and her presence where she had not the slightest business to be threw the rest of his mental machinery out of gear.
 It is very generally admitted now that the sprightly Miss Sadie managed the whole affair. No one who knew Peters would ever have given him the credit of proposing an lopement-"accuse him of it," as Johnson puts it. She claimed that while she could manage her father all right enough up to certain point, yet in this particular matter she pre- ferred to negotiate with him after mar riage rather than before. She had a great deal of the old mans shrewdness had Sadie. He used to say he would not like tO have her as an onnonent on a