Evening star., 1900-08-18
SURPRISE BETWEEN COVERS

MRS. JODSOl, SAID JOuSOI, SeltiiS
up from his easy wicker chair on Sunday
afternoon last and striding up and down
the length of the Jobson domicile. while
Mrs. Jobson sat by a window reading
book, you're what might be called pretty
good church member. are you not?
Well" replied Mrs. Jobson, smiling, Il
am not exactly"
Go to church every Sunday Of your life,
rain or shine. storm or calm, don't your
broke in Mr.. Jobson.
Mrs. Jobson nodded.
Belong to guild. or what-d.ye-call-it.
and missionary society, and make flannel
things for the benighted folks that live In
the Congo where the temperatures 115 in
the shade the year around, don't your!
"Wen, 1 am member Of
And you've been looking down upon me
for a good many years past because
haven't had the time to follow you along IN
your church affairs, haven't. your?
Now, you know that
VERY WELL" said Mr.. Jobson, clearing his
throat judicially, this all being true. let me
beg to inquire of you how you can reconcile
1t with your conscience to poison your mlno
on Sunday by reading such literature as
that which you have in your hand. and
which you have been devouring for pre-
cisely two hours and fifteen minutes by the
watch?' And Mr.. Jobson pulled out his
timepiece and gazed at it as searchingly as
if he were trying to get line on the speed
of flying race morse.
Why" said Mrs. Jobson looking up sur
prisedly, this book Is not
'Oh, I know it Isn't interrupted Mr.
Jobson. Its perfectly harmless and inoc-
uous and innocent and all that, of course.
All of the slushy novels that you read are
all that is exalted, and high-grade, and up
lifting, and improving, and all sorts OF
things of course. That is, to hear you tell
it. The point is-one of the points.isnt
there some other sort Of thing that you
could find to occupy your mind on sun
day. much less on week day, than to read
such stuff that which you hold in your
hand"
But" Mrs. Jobson started to say, this
work Is -
"Oh, it's a work, is it?" cut In Mr. job
son, sardonically. You call those things
all right, in the sense that they work you
and a good many other millions of women
in this country with good homes to look
after into wasting heap of their valuable
time upon them. Work hey? In what
chapter, II 1 might ask. does the billion
aire young owner of the New England cot
ton works in that book get his eye on the
poor but honest and beautiful young female
operative employed in his plant, and I'M
plore her to be his'n and marry her in the
swaggerest church in Boston, and carry her
of on a trip Of the world on his yacht?'
There is nothing like that in this book, y
said Mrs. Jobson, smiling. IT'S an entirely
DIFF
Entirely different sort of thing. hey?"
interrupted Mr.. Jobson. well. have you
come to the part yet where the young
chuckehead of a dragoon in the Queen 8
Household Bunch. who looks like two or
three different brands of Greek god who
drinks fourteen gallons of brandy and soda
every night and wakes up every morning af-
terward without so much as bad taste In
the mouth, and who can beat every profess
sional steeplechase jockey in Great Britain
a-ridng hands down-have you come to the
part yet where he gets into a wrestling
match with the champion pugilist of the
globe. and hurls the champion forty-seven
feet through one of the walls Of the tapes
tried drawing room where the contest takes
place, and
oh" said Mrs. Jobson. still smiling,
there is nothing OF that kind, either, in
this
"Ain't. hey?" shifted Mr.. Jobson. well.
have you reached the chapter yet where the
young woman who has been sent to girls
school in the city from farm, returns after
five years, to the farm, and is made weary
by the sight of the wrinkles on her paws
| neck, and the clabber-covered aprons worn
by her poor old mother, and the hired men
| in harvest time devouring pies for break
fast, and where the young woman. full of
the inspiration Of the Higher and Nobler
and the Influence of Alien Environment,
decides that she will shake down the coin
hid In the crock on top of the pantry and
flee to the great city, where she will study
to become a sculptress, and make st. Gau-
dens and Canova and Thorwaldsen and a
few other cheap figure-makers like that
look like"
But this work" int .rrupted Mrs Jobson
again, "is really utter'y, different from what
you"
Still different. eh?" said Mr.. Jobson.
We'll, then, l suppose 1t has to do with the
scapegrace son of the enormously rich Eng
lish ironmaster, who. after having engaged
himself to the fourteenth daughter of one
of the poorer jukes Of the realm, sees an
American girl at the running of the Derby,
and straightway gets to incoming 80 about
her that he cant S1ppr n p}c nd
finally musters enough nerve to go and tell
the 5uke about it, and is spitted on the end
Of rapier at dawn in the Juke's trusty
| right hand for his caddishness, and then"
mo. l fear you have not yet"
Haven't hit the motif of that fine bit of
Sunday realing you've been poring over yet,
hey. went on Mr. Jobson. still striding up
one OF those hasheesh colonial stories then
where one George Washington, one-time
President OF the United States, Is made to
! figure In a whole lot of idiotic adventures,
or where some huge young cub from one of
the American colonies goes over to England
on ship, and gets captured by pirates four
or f1ve times on the way, which makes 1t
possible Tor him to have fricaseed pirate for
breakfast every morning OF the voyage for
| quite long stretch of weeks, and when he
gets to England he makes such a hit with
the court and with himself that all of the
young Mayfair bucks and Belgrayia bjades
| become jealous Of him, and"
again, said Mrs. Jobson. ct fear YOU
| have quite failed to guess Just"
Have, eh?" said Mr.. Jobson, "All right
| It's probably ole of those man and wife
| social study affairs. where the wife after
carefully thinking 1t over. comes to the con-
clusion that her husband who Is the nro-
prletor of large and prosperous soap fac
| tory, that yields him an income of s45 Ooo
per annum. most of which he spends on her
! ,where this wife, I say. comes to the CON
| ciuslon that her husband doesn't know
enough about the esoteric and the occuIt
much less the Delsarte system and the
science of repose, and that the gradually
thckenlng roll Of fat on the back Of his
neck Is becoming wearisome to her anv-
| now, not to speak of the obvious endowment
with which he drinks buttermilk, and where
she makes proposition to him that thew
ara" up separation articles, whereby he is
to continue handing her over $40. 900 Der an.
| mum OF the s45. .O0O that he earns. and thai
| she is to be allowed to- Via
NO.. said Mrs. Jobson, this book doasn,t
reiate particularly to the modern coniups
state. nor does it" al
Doesn't eh?' said Mr. Jobson. .rwe,,
IT'S too much like work to furnish guesses
as TO what 1t does relate to, considering the
| amount of mind-poisoning rubbish that Won
contr1Fe TO get through In the progress of q
year; But It's good wager that. II II
hasnt to do with any Of the themes r have
touched upon. 1t is In every respect met " $
I ne