Perth Amboy evening news., 1905-10-11
EVENING SHORT STORY.


VI II q . ~ AOOHs
been rummaging for some time
whats become of that topcoat OF
mine?"
+, The mans wife stepped into the fiat
hall from the dining-room and gazed
at him blankly.
why she said, 81 was wondering
what you were hunting for in there.
l."
"Uh-huh." said the man, thrusting
his hands into his pockets and look
ing gloomy. $50 you've gone and
sold that topcoat of mine to some old
clothes man, hey? Well, if that
wouldn't jolt "a"
~Dldn't tell you," she began again:
chat L" 8kBb
"And here" he broke in, brilliantly,
"I've been figuring right along onshay.
ing that topcoat to cover me up when
the chilly weather drifted along,
and"
"If you'd only give me a chance
to-
II don't know where you've picked
up this new idea of yours that I'm a
millionaire under cover, and that I'm
trying to hold out my wealth on you;
but, anyway, you seem to've got IT all
charted out that I'm able to dig up
$40 for a new topcoat every time the
nippy season zephyrs along this way,
and why
Edward Bronxcrick, if you"
And I'd be willing to bet a nickePs
worth of gum, 1T that, that you'd be
ashamed to own up just what h old
clothes dickerer gaveVou for that top
coat, if, indeed, you sold it to him at
all-it's just as likely as not that you
traded it for a patent egg-beater or
some ~newfangled kind of a ten-cent
coffee strainer that he flashed on
you, or"
For mercy's sake. won't you"
"And when you heard the peddler
pounding on the door you of course
got all het over thinking of the potato
masher he was going to hand you in
exchange for your husbands only
top"
Twill the man ever in this wide
world stop long enough to let me-"
"And you just tossed the coat over
to him when he offered to give you
some blamed tin stew pan, and so
here am with the bitey weather right
IN top of me, and all of the fellows
out with their topcoats long ago, and
nary the thing have l got to keep me
warm unless l wear that two-inch
thick ulster. and now I'll have to go
down and make another dig for a new
topcoat when the one that you gave
away to the tinware peddler was just
about as good as new. and"
Then the mans wife slowly walked
over to where he was executing his
verbal endless chain, grabbed him by
the lapels of his smoking jacket, shook
him, silenced him with two or three
hysterical little screeches, and began:
"If you had lived two centuries ago
in Massachusetts, or any of those blue
law places you'd have spent most of
your time in the ducking school as a
common scold. l never heard a hui
man being give utterance to such a
perfectly unreasonable flow Of nom
sense in all my born days, and when
you get started you're worse than that
baby fox terrier we had that cried
all night. and"
"And il you would only rest your
voice long enough to listen to people
until they're able to work in a word
edgewise you would get more informa-
ton; but, no, you go on with an in
terminable string of stuff about egg
beaters and coffee-strainers and such
c~razinesses without knowing a word
of what you're talking about, and you
never by any chance do people the
| slightest sort of justice for spending
all of their time in looking after o
and your comfort, but the first time
you think you've got a chance to be-
gin one Of those continuous perform
ance harp, harp, harps of yours about
| some teenchy, weenchy, miserable
thing, why, away you start, like an old
hundred year clock that suddenly
takes a notion to start running. and
nothing in this wide, wide world will
stop you, except to-
"All right, then, if you think it's
the proper kink for you to swipe the
only clothes I've got and dish 'em
out to rag dealers for little or nothing,
why, go right ahead, but"
"And all the time you're going on
like a train of cars running away down
a mountain side I'm trying the very
best l know how, I'm sure, to tell,
you"
"All the time that you're gibbering
and gyrating around and tousling up
your hair and twisting your mustache
till you look like a walrus l am
struggling frantically to tell you
that +,
"All right-now let it go at that.
What were you trying to tell me, I'd
like to know"
"AHl never a word would you let
me get in, no matter how frequently
tried, but, no. away you went, as you
always do, like a White Mountain
stage coach flying on two wheels down