The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-05-19

whole world encourages itl Every body Is against a chap-I mean--that is-er--er----" l paused awkwardly i.
 You might begin all over again." inusuggested Kitty frigidly.
 Well" l exclaimed in desperation, wedging myself in between Kitty and the superfuous old gentleman, "just look what happens the moment two people begin to take a casual interest in one another."
 What DOES happen, MT. CurtisT' Kitty leaned forward with her hands claseped on her parasol and an inscrut- able look of challenge beneath her lowered lashes.
 Just then the old gentleman rose and casually sauntered off down the path.
 THAT happensl I said triumphant- ly, holding toward the receding figure of the departing Nemesis.
 Kitty blushed and transferred her gaze to the branches of the tree above us.
 Everybody" continued grumbling- ly, gets out of the way when the two appear. Everybody grows suddenly blind and deaf and dumb when they are around. Put a pair of lovers on a i hotel piazza and in half an hour that side of the place is deserted by the rest of the world; seat them on a divan al a pink tea and in twenty minutes every l body Is at the other end of the room 1 place them on an ocean steamer and every sould aboard, from the captain to the cabin boy, will dodge at their l approach. Nobody seems interested Tn | chairs when they are around. Society ! avoids them as consistently as if they | were the plague. It's just as if the l public had tacitly agreed to put up q 1 game to inveigle man into commit | ting himself n mental ton to force him into matrimony. And 1 if there's anything that will give g chap cold feet--"
 "What?"
 "A reaction" corrected, ''or a dis 1 taste for doing something, it's know. | ing that it's expected of him." "Oh, well. signed Kitty, with g vicious little dig of her parasol. T suD- pose they do 1t because they are senti' mental and remember how it was when they were young and"
 If they do,' I asserted vehemently "they ought to remember that what they needed was not encouragement but Encouragement; not the sugar oi | approval but the spice of opposton;no' clear field and leading string. bu stone wall to climb and stern pa l rent to outwit. It's a mighty veal fly who won't take wings at the sigh l of sticky ny paper, ana very sllll fish who will swim right into q ne that is hung out in plain view. Ant it's mighty unsophisticated young man who won't dodge the snares of { | sympathetic public and the traps of ; | managing mama
 "What kind of mama, Mir. Curtis?
 "The kind" I explained, that keep the house full of window seats an' cozy corners and low lights and mu sic and always sends the famil, out of the room when you arriv ing you brief inventory of-her daugh ter's domestic accomplishments and
 "Yes," broke in Kitty, tits alway the orphan girl with the cruel guardia who marries the moment she escape from the convent, while the girl wit the accommodating parents is sittin round acquiring crowfeet waiting fo an offer"
 And it's two people," added, "wh | are under age and unsuitable am whom the whole family are trying t tear apart, who are willing to rae poverty and dragons for one another 1 never the two who are thrown at eac others heads. What this country need is not a bachelor tax. nor more law for the protection of matrimony, pu
 a few dont's for lovers, few diff1cul
 ties and obstacles-
 Like the iron-barred windows Dc