Vaucross was to rush Miss Blye with all the style and display
and emotion he could for a month. Of course, that amounted to nothing as
far as his ambitions were concerned. The sight of a man in a white tie
and patent leather pumps pouring greenbacks through the large end of
a cornucopia to purchase nutriment and heartsease for tall, willowy
blondes in New York is as common a sight as blue turtles in delirium
tremens. But he was to write her love letters--the worst kind of love
letters, such as your wife publishes after you are dead--every day. At
the end of the month he was to drop her, and she would bring suit for
$100,000 for breach of promise.
"Miss Artemisia was to get $10,000. If she won the suit that was all;
and if she lost she was to get it anyhow. There was a signed contract to
that effect.
"Sometimes they had me out with 'em, but not often. I couldn't keep up
to their style. She used to pull out his notes and criticize them like
bills of lading.
"'Say, you!' she'd say. 'What do you call this--letter to a Hardware
Merchant from His Nephew on Learning that His Aunt Has Nettlerash? You
Eastern duffers know as much about writing love letters as a Kansas
grasshopper does about tugboats.
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