The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1922-01-05
CHAPTER |.
Cousin Perey,s Little Joke.

%A5 - !
Cousin Percy,s Little Joke.
I suppose every one has had the ex-,
perience of waking In. the middle of
the night to find everything perfectly
still and quiet and normal, and vet
with the impression persisting that
there had been a tremendous crash of
some sort just before the waking
senses were alive enough to realize 1t.
1t was some such razing jolt as this
that was given me on the morning
when I was called In, with the other
members Of the family, to listen to the
reading Of my grandfather's will. S:
But, first, however, to give some
idea OF the conditions precedent, as d
lawyer would say. My father-good,
easy-going, confort-loving Dad -
never owned what Grandfather Dud-
ley, pursuing his thin lips and Swapping
the words out, called "athe money
sense" As an. architect high In his
profession and with fine artistic feel
Ing for the beautiful In buildings, he
\ earned a liberal income--and spent 1t ;
Oh, SO, much OF 1t thar there was barely
enough left after his death to provide
for my mother and sister, and to keep
me going, as you might say, in an ex-
: ceedingly modest manner. Without
work. I mean. I may as well confess.
at once, that i had never acquired the
work habit. I was always fgoing to-"
but 1t was 50 fatally easy to Keep or
poS$rorf,- ~ ohfll3r~ SD1,,nrn r. c,1p-
pose I had been ready on at least half
q dozen occasions to take a dive into
some. pool with a salary attachment;
but always some good friend would,
bob up to say, "0h.S come on, Stannie,
old man; we're lacking just q more
to make up, the bunch. Don't be a.
clam. Time enough to- settle down
when You have to-" and then 1t would
be all OH. Il Els +
Besides, you see. there was always
Grandfather Jasper In the background.
He had money-lashings of 1t, so we
all believed and IT had been a family
understanding for years that he in
tended splitting the bulk of II. fifty
fifty, between my cousin Percy and
me-. Before we go any farther, let me
set 1t down that COUSIN Percy was
and ts-all the seventeen different
kinds of things that / am not. and
never wished to be ; smooth, neat, we'll
groomed, a "grind" in college and n
perfect dear with the girls, am
bilious as the very devil, and measur
ing his friends by the amount Of pull"
they might be able to exert In his be-
half 1 there you have him from the
crown OF his well-brushed little head
to his patent-leather pumps.
81 you're d fright. Stannie," he would
say, in his carefully polished diplo-
matte manner--he had a billet in the
Department OF State at Washington,
and was In training for the legation.
service abroad-you are d perfect
fright. Three whole years out OF col
lege, and you haven't done d single.
solitary useful thing vet. When are
you going to begin2 And. Incidental
", how long are YOU going To- keep
Lisette waitingy
Oh, Lord right there was another.
knot In the tangle--Lisette. We had
agreed to agree-Lisette and I-some
six months or SO In advance OF Grand
father Jasper's death, and we were
both perfectly we'll assured, and had
assured eAch other dozen times. that
my income from Dads estate wasn't
more than half big enough / marry
on. You see, H was this way: Lisette
was b of q family OF four girls iii d