Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1892-06-21
PETERS GARELEsSNEsS
BY LUKE suAnp

t.Es BY LUKE SHARP. 7LS
Love worketh wonders, as hath been
said by various wise men before the
present writer manipulated the sentence
on his typing machine,
! 1t is remarkable that the 7. p. (mean-
ing the tender PASSION should have
turned methodical mans lnethodicai,
ness to his own undoing, as nearly hap
pened in the case of Mr.. George Peters.
Love should have nothing to do with u
man during business hours. Thers
ought to be a placard to this effect hang
ing up in all well regulated business
houses:
"Clerks in love are requested by the man
| agement not to think of the Rdored object be-
tween the hours Of o a. M. and p. nj.
aG ny ORDER"
Now George Peters was u very, very
methodical person for so young 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 Enclosures 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 ia pointing to O'Clock
1t is little wonder, then, that Peters
stood high in the confidence of old man
Bentham. Bentham was Benthalm
Brothers s. Co. There were no brothers
and no company-that was merely the
firm name-it was all BcnthaIn. Per.
haps there once We're brothers and per
haps there was once a company, but that
Is all ancient history, anyhow, and has
nothing to do with this strictly modern
| story. And it did not interfere with the
| fact that old Bentham's name was a
lovely thing to have at the bottom of q
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 within
the bounds of possibility. Love- they ar
gued, was not an article that can be
| docketed and ticl1eted and referred back
! for further information, and entered in
the day book and posted on the debit or
credit side of a ledger, so what on earth
could Peters do with 1t if he had itP
Manifestly nothing. If they had known
as much about human nature as YOU or
1, 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 to have given a
| thought to-in other words, pretty little
| Miss Sadie Benthan, If you please. 1t
| 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
Benthan. The clerks always said that
it was Miss Sadie who fell in love with
Peters, principally, I suppose, because
she should have known better, and /
think myself there is something to be
said for that view of the matter ANY.
how, she came to her fathers place Of
! business very often, and apparently very
unnecessarily but the old man was al.
ways pleased to see her, no matter how
busy he happened to be. At first she
rarely looked at Peters, but when she
did fash one of those quick glances of hers
at him poor Peters thought he had the
fever and ague. He understood the sy1np.
toms later on.
climax neither do the clerks, for thai
matter, although they pretend to. Be.
sides, they are divided in their opinions.
so 1 think their collective snrmises
amount to but very little. johnson
claims that it was done over the tele.
phone, while Farnam says she came tc
the Office one day her father WINS moi
there and proposed to Peters ON the spot.
One thing the clerks were unanimous
about, and that is that Peters, left ts
himself, would never have had the cour.
age Still, too much attention must moi
be paid to what the clerks say. What
can they know about itI They are IL
another room.
Peters knew that he had no right tc
think about that girl during busines,
hours. He was paid to think about the
old man and his affairs, which was not
nearly SO interesting. But Peters was
conscientious and he tried to do his duty
Nevertheless. the chances are that nm.
consciously little Miss Sadie occuuied
some small portion of his mind thai
should have been given up to the con.
Germs of Bentham Brothers & Co., and
her presence where she had not the-
slightest business to be threw the rest OF
his mental machinery out of gear.
1t Is very generally admitted now that
the sprightly Miss Sadie managed thu
whole affair. No one who knew PeterI
would ever have given him the credit oI
proposing an elopement e accuse him oi
it, as johnson puts it. She claimed
that while she could manage her father
all right enough up to certain point,
yet that in this particular matter shG
preferred to negotiate with him after
marriage rather than before. She had
great deal of the old mans shrewdness
had Sadie. He used to say he would moi
like to have her as an opponent on
wheat deal.
Then the clerks say-but hang ths
clerksl What do they know about I'll
AS Farna1n truly remarked, casting q
gloom over the rest as he spoke: q You
may say what you like about Peters,
but you cam get over the unlyholesome
fact that none Of us got her
The gallingness Of this undoubted truth
was that each of the clerks thought him.