The Norfolk Virginian. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 186?-189?, 1896-11-04
She Was Anxious 10 Have Hin Appear to
Be Her Devoted Sweetheart.
A PRETTY GIRLS MYSTERIOUS WHlM
She Seemed to Have u GDod Reason
for Asking q 5lnn She Had Never
Seen Beiorc TO Accompany der on
n Promenade Along ~ Fashion
able Street.
agnes Warwick In Chicago News)


are Infinitely more interesting than
good, solid, wcll-behaved slabs vino re-
main immovably fixed in their proper
places ANA do what Is expected of them
toward Keeping the social building firm
OH Its foundations!
l have been having a beautiful time
lately with rolling stone of my ac-
quaintance. Fancy spending an evening
ana three whole afternoons With man
who has inhabited at one time or an
ether most quarters Of the globe, civil
lized and uncivll.zed. who Is possessed
of an ineXhaustiblc fund of true anec-
dotes and who begins his little tales
thus:
when was managing a salmon can
merry In Alaska"
Or. when | was running dahabce-
yah ON the Nile"
Or, when l owned q chicken farm i'll
Missouri
OR. when l was claim agent for a
pipe mandatory in New York"
Or. When | was foreman on a sheep
ranch IN New Zealand
Or, when ! was travelling for a Ja-
panese Wallpaper flrn,-'
Doesn't II sound delightful? But the
trouble is that most of the stories were
a. tritle too wonderful. OR al least so
wonderful that written down they would
be timc. For the reason thai you would
certainly think that | had made them
up-or he had. and of course, some peo-
pie can make up anythlng-even she"
or The Red Badge OF Courage"
There l. curious difference between
the attitude of mind in which we APP
preach facts and that uneonsciOusiy
adopted when fiction is in question. The
,hr!lling adventures hairbreadth es-
c2pes, tragic, and dramatic situa atoms in
novels finds us and leaves us compara-
lively cold. chilled by the reflection that
they were consciously evolved from the
brain of some Notwithstanding man N
! writing table or shirt wasted mother
of a family. forc!hly procla!ming that
he really must rot be disturbed this
morning"
Tales less moving. episodes far less
polgnantly and completely dramatic
stir us with the !ncommunicahlc thrill
of things" when we know that they ac-
;ually took place; that they are real
when the convincing eye of the narrator.
who was also actor or witness. holds
our own. And so I'm not going TO tell
YOU about what happened on the chicken
farm in Missouri, or nj the salmon can
merry. or beside the Nile. because | de-
spair, through this medium Of making
you feel those s:cries In he true.
But there is one little history my
rolling stone told me l think you might
believe.
1t is not hlood-curding or startling or
soul-stirring or anything but just queer.
And there as so many queer things hap
pening every day right here in Chicago
that n story has to have n quite eX
traordinary amount of queerncss about
II before Chicagoans think 1t incred-
BILE.
This. however, didn't occur in Chicago.
but In Brooklyn: that city of ancient
churches and modern vice. whose repu-
tation for special responsibility and
sanctity so long outlived reality.
,,.n- LOT. q III, Ia.
frightfully hot weather last month and
Mr. Rolling Stone had been prosaically
buying boracic acid at Il respectable
even family swell drug store on the cor
ncr of --- street and - avenue.
He was waiting for n Canarsie electric
car and standing near the soda foun-
tain. Beside him was a well-dressed
girl, drinking lemon phosphate. He de-
scribcd her as being rather pretty. very
attractive and Enthusiastically what one
used to understand by the term lady"
q don't know whether the many rolls
of this particular stone have impaired
his Judgment where that element is con-
cerned or not, but l don't think they
have)
Mr.. Rolling Stone thought he sighted
his car and left the store. The girl had
paid for her phosphate and followed him
They reached the sidewalk together.
Then she spoke, blushing slightly. he
self-possession. This is what she said:
Sir, l am about to ask favor of
you. We are, of course. absolute stranp
ers and 1t is highly improbable that we
shall ever meet again. but Ii is I'm yol,r
power, If you are not pressed for time.
to put me under very great obligations
to YOU"
Mr.. Rolling Stone. after an impercepti-
BILE interval OF dumfoundedncsS, put his
suspicious in his pocket. as he expressed
it, and signified that he had half an
hour entirely at the young woman's
disposal.
"Oh. it won't take quite so long as
that" she said. brightly: but without the
least familiarity. What want you to
do is to walk up and down shorc part
of --- avenue with me and ;oDk as If
you were-well as If we were engaged
and very intimate. you know"
This amazing request, coming. rs IL
did, after a day of intense heat, nearly
proved fatal to Mr.. Rolling Stone. lie
pnched himself violently and resortcd to
other time honored methods of assuring
himself of his own identity. That con-
forting fact established to his satisrac-
ton, he decided that his companion
must be the charming victim of an at
tack of heat insanity AMI then he
a abandoned himself TO her and the situa-
ton
They strolled twice up and down the
selected portion of - avenue. mar
row, asphalt-paved thoroughfara, where
uneXceptionable brownstone houses
faced each other In staid monotony and
MI. Rolling Stone declares IL to have
been the most altogether deliehtful
stroll of his life. No wanderings in
japanese tea gardens or dallyinEs in