Perth Amboy evening news., 1905-10-09
EVENING SHORT STORY.
LOVE AND LUCK.

who had been the usherS at ms wedding
to Mae Robertson a month or SO before.
Don't | know it?"
Nowsif anybody in town knows any,
thing about luck-bad luck-it is that
same Branscomb. But LEI him finish
his argument.
you see," he went On, "if a man could
live forever there wouldn't be any
luck. 1t would all even up in the long
run. It's like this: If you and three
other men could sit down and play whist
until every possible hand had been
dealt Quit would take something like
a million years, playing ten hours a day
you'd all come out just even, wouldn't
you2 S%upposing, of course, you were
about the same sort of players, all
of you
That's the way it would be if you
could just go on living indefinitely. AS
a matter of sober fact you live n life
time and then you're finished. You
don't get a whack at more than the
thousandth part of all the hands you
could hold, and the few that do come to
you may be streaked with n kind OF
luck and another. Now my kind runs TO
the sort that gets me in the fix I'm in
now-and just back from my wedding
trip. No, I'm not back from my honey
moon, am l, Mae? That's going to last
out our lifetime and into eternity"
But the story of Georges wooing de-
serves to be told, because it was a sue
cession of the most curious accidents
that ever happened to anybody. These
may have been said to have begun be-
fore he was born and during that inter-
esting event, for Georges father was
killed by getting into a bed which had
a slat out near the ~headboard. The mat
tress slipped and carried him under the
bottom of that board in such a manner
that he was found in his hotel choked
to death, the board close against his
throat, preventing both cutlery and
escape. And George was born on the
railway train that was bearing his
mother to the scene of the disaster.
His acquaintance with Mae Robertson
began in some such way-not equally
disastrous, but no less accidental. He
had known who she was for a long time,
and his name and face were quite as
well known to her. But they never
really knew each other until he slipped
sideways down town last winter and
managed to take her feet out from I'M
der her just as she was trying to pass
him in the street.
When they were untangled by officious
oceorc ly th0xr x,a,o n oo,a;ntod Tho
acquaintance grew to something like
intimacy through their t~ripping-not
lightly nor with fantastic toe-the first
time they danced together.
Most girls would have minded in a
way that told against the chap unfor-
tunate enough to make a show of her
before a ballroom filled with people.
But George took her into a corner and
explained. that he had been doing that
sort of thing ever since he could remem-
Der. He had been the kind of small boy
who is always getting hurt, so that the
successive weeks of his life were marked
with scars and bruises, beginning the
Cling out of his nurses arms in baby
hood, and others derived from falling
out of bed some 40 or so times in the
stage just past infancy.
The night last spring when George
set out to propose to Mae, after all sorts
Of attentions, including the sending her
a bunch of flowers with a large spider
in them, he slipped on the carriage step,
tore his beautiful new trousers all up
the leg, and parked his shin so badly
he could hardly walk for a week. So he
didn't propose in state, as he had in
tended, but sneaked off from business
one afternoon without changing his
collar or washing his hands-for fear
his luck could find it out and pursue
him.
1t wasn't so much better on their we'd
ding day. Being as prudent as his
extraordinary misfortunes would per-
nit, George packed his trunk and grip
the night before. Happening to think
Of something hat he had forgotten Just
after he had put out his light, he arose
to get it-and gave a new rendition OF
one of his favorite tricks. He walked
into a door that was mean enough to
sneak between his outstretched hands,
and when he awoke on his wedding
morn he had as lovely a pair of black
eyes as were ever commemorated in
song. Luckily there was paint and q
druggist who knew how-to apply it, SO
Mae was no further d~isgrgaced at the
altar than by his falling over her train.
But on his wedding trip George gave
a new performance variation of tho
open door stunt. He was boarding up
north, he and his bride, with a clergy
man and his family.
( They had the best room in the house,
which was a parlor with a large bed In
II. There vas also an old-fashioned
whatnot with a cupboard under 1t. The
fool door of this came open during the
night, so that when George got I'D in
the night to get Mae a drink of water
he fell over the door and in his efforts
to save himself pulled the whatnot and
all the clerical bric-a-brac over on his