The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-02-02
SIMPLICITY OF MY COUSIN RAN.
DOLPH

Il Il
DOLPH.
There is no greatness like simplicity
quoth my Cousin Randolph, beaming
and complacent.
I agreed. IT'S an excellent card al
IT'S the ace of trumps." said he
when hearts lead" For ease, he dan
gled his leg over the arm of his chair.
Il tell you a simple mind may conceive
and if one can only manage to look
simple
glanced at his fair fat face, with its
pale prominent eyes and shy little mus
tache, and wondered-silent and wait
ing.
ITS aunt" he explained, vaguely,
AUNT, and those COMPOUNDED Medusas.
I'm in the throeS of a crisis
Still 1 waited, unwilling to dam the
flow of a possible confession.
"Medusas are down." he went on,
''down, cOnfOundedly down, and aunt is
so to speak-up. She's staying at the
Grand. 1t occurred to me that some
thing might be made of the combina-
ton Dear soul, she's a perfect stranger
to the-the-higher forms of finance.
Does all her business through some girl
my man calls the Lady Seckerty.'
'AhI'' scented revelations.
mot that I would take any sort of
advantage of her Ignorance, you under
stand" he mounted a moral pedestal
Medusas had gone up instead of down.
it's run me into four fgures!"
ct don't see the greatness of this
simplicity" I observed.
at follows in due course, he assured
me. 1.-THE difficulty, of course, lies in
the four figures, which, by the way, L
hadn't got. No. And in such cireum-
stances the broker chap is apt to get
unpleasant and invoke the what-d'ye-
call-'ems of the law. That's what my
broker chap did, and now he's talking
of some beastly things he calls dis
traint Know what that is?'
I enlightened him to the best Of my
ability.
England isn't what it was he COM
planned bitterly. I'm the good old days
an Englishmans home was his castle
now, it's the place where people take
inventories of your things and hoId
auction sales. When there's anything
at all to SELL he added as an after
thought.
must have expressed some little in
credulity. My Cousin Randolph was
the reputed owner of a very neat little
property, and, so far as knew, 1t had
never changed hands.
Because, by a rather complicated ar
rangement, directly I had heard from
the broker chap 1 interviewed GEAR
Aunt with the result that she now be-
lieves herself to be the proprietor OF all
my little household gods in exchange
for her little check" He caretully Sc
lected and lighted fresh cigarette.
didn't think it was necessary to tell
her they were all covered with a bill! OF
sale some two years ago-to begin with,
the poor dear wouldn't have under
stood what that meant
At didn't ask for money. I only
asked her to let me have check for,
say, two thousand pounds-properly
crossed and so on, you knoW-Just TO
show the people who came to make
should explain that they weren't mine
at all-that I'd sold them to dear
aunt. and should show the check IN
proof-in most conclusive proof
that she'd bought and paid for them.
Simple, isn't to"
1 began to laugh; this commercial
was novel.
And then, of course, they'd go
away-and 1 return the check to dear
aunt, and all is well. That's how it
looks to her..
"And you actually got it?''
He took a slip of pink paper from
fectionately. Eyes, I actually got it.
But seeing that the banks all close SO
early on Saturdays-
He sighed and returned 1T to its
s.It's playing it rather low down on
dear aunt, I admit" he said. sorrow
fully, especially as she had crossed
the thing to make it safe She thinks
for a few days. But suppose I hap
pened to lose it, and somebody else
found it and discounted it-with a
little hard swearing thrown in-what?
And that's where you come in
"And she'll believe all that-that
ITO the simple all is simplicity"
quoth he, land I don't think the dear
lady knows what footle' means"
A violent ringing of the telephone
bell interrupted US for a moment.
fsThat's the worst of fixing up ones
rooms like some beastly Office" OBJ
served my Cousin Randolph casually.
Hang on to the thing and see what
it wants You're nearest
And if it's anything unpleasant" he
went on, as the bell rang again, say m
away and you're my clerk. Say I'm dead,
sfTm hanged if I do retorted. HUI
Ioi" I held the thing to my ear
A squeaky voice, small and distinct, re-
sponded. Are you there?
YES thanks. What is it?"
I'm the Grand neutrality-suspicious.
I can't hear-the Grand Hotel, Sn1ithers,
my name is, Miss Snithers. Smith !