The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-05-23
HOW SOME MEN PROPOSE.
TFrom the washington Start

IF'rom the Washington Star.1
mo" said the sweet thing in the
Valenciennes-lace-tr trimmed dinlity dress
Il really wouldn't care to have him
fall to his knees, and .exclaim in a tone
of passinate intreaty,' Give me but
single ray of hopei' think that would
be absurd beyond all things. I am sure
I should feel like laughing in a young
mans face if he did any of these ride
ulous things. Yet I think even the old
fashioned, high-falutin', y-life-would-
be-a-blank- without-you way of pro-
posing mentioned in Miss Austen's
bread -treacle stories would be bet
ter than the dreadfully slangy, matter
of-fact-way young men have of pro-
posing nowadays, according to what
lot of married girls tell me. Only yes
terday one of them told me how her
husband asked her. They had been 60
ing together for six months. One after
noon last October they were walking
on F street together. She bowed to a
young man she knew.
- Awfully nice looking, isn't he? she
asked Jack, who is now her husband.
q 'Fair-looking duck said Jack. But
who's I-double-tee, It, anyhow? Don't
cut in at ALP
'.She really didn't know what he
meant.
6 Well, went on Jack, you're always
telling me what "a good locker that
geezer is. Now, is he the whole thing,
and am I an "also ram" or do I win?
I just pass it up to you, you know
She didn't understand him this time,
either, ana don't WOnQef-
N"You're side-stepping and don't want
to understand went on Jack. All
right. Can you fix it for about three
months from date? That's plain enough
isn't it?'
1T wasn't, though.
Fix what?' she asked him.
The day and the hour, said Jack.
ITO get doubled up, you know
well, of course he makes her a good
husband, but just fancy being pro-
posed to in that dreadful way!
You know my married cousin up on
the hill? Well, Jim just worked a
bluff'-that's the horrid way he puts it
when he proposed to her. He'd been
calling pretty regularly, and one night
he showed up looking as clipper as a
lark.
:. Well, I'm off in a few days. he
said to her. Nothing in the govern
ment service, anyhow. Going to resign
my job in a couple of days and strike
out for Oklahoma to grow up with the
weeds
''She couldn't help but show she was
sorry, of course.
s. Tn sorry you're going she said.
She's such a remarkably serious mind
ed girl, you know.
g Yes, you are he said.
" Really, 1 am she said.
say he said then, if I thought
you were on the level mean real sor-
ry, you know, why-er-I wouldn't go,
you know
why do you wish to leave so beau
tiful city as Washington? she asked
him. Surely you don't expect to find a
prettier place to live imp
well, of course, this gave him
chance to say that he was only staying
in Washington on her account but that
as long as she didn't seem to care, etc.,
etc.
impudence with which her husband pro-
posed to her was simply captivating.
1t was just about this time last spring,
and they were walking through Lafay-
cite square.
Trees and flowers look nice, don't
they?' he said to her in an off-hand
sort of way. Swell season in Washing
ton, spring, isn't it? We won't be
thing but married when the lilies show
up next spring, will we?'
Did you ever hear of such assur-
ance?
Il heard another bit of brazen i'm
pudence just like that She told me
about it herself. He came up in the
evening and sat on the front steps with
her.
loot promoted to 81 400 today he
said, and then he deliberately pulled out
a piece of paper with a lot of figures
it.
g Did a little figuring on a pad this
afternoon, he said. 1.-The thing ought
to go through easy. Listen: House
rent, about $35 or $40 month; servant,
SIS a month: gas and fuel
Mind you, he hadn't ever said a
word to her about getting married. But
you ought to see what pretty home
Iney We got now!
THE diff1dent young men are just as
matter-of-fact as the 3mpudent ones,
too, 1 hear. You know little Mrs. Final
~, up on Columbia Heights, and what
a quiet, bashful man her husband is?
I often wondered how he ever mustered
enough courage to ask her, and you
know they did go together for three
years before they were married. She
told me about it not long ago. They
went car riding one Sunday afternoon,
and rode to the end of the Fourteenth
street line. Then they got off and walk
ed. He showed her the house where
they now live. She admired it.
8 I'm buying it,, he said. Got 1t all
furnished, too
1T was the very first she knew of it,
and of course she had to ask him if he
meditated starting a boarding house.
That made it comparatively easy for
him. although she said that she thought
he'd have a stroke, even then, before
he got it out.
"Well, they all appear to be as happy
as can be, but I do think that I'd like
to have just a teeny bit more of senti-
ment in a case of that kind. I don't
think there's half enough sentiment in
the world, as it is.
Trotting Stallion.
T w Mergan's trotting stallion AL