Wired Love by Ella Cheever Thayer (13 ebook reader txt) 📕

all over and quietly realize it; and besides, in her secret heart, Nattie felt a growing conviction that Cyn used the plural pronoun “we” more than previous circumstances actually warranted.

“But Nat,” said Cyn, all unconscious of her friend’s jealous criticism, “you have not yet told me how you found him out?”

“He telegraphed to me with a pencil on the table, and coolly informed me that he was C,” Nattie explained.

“And then you jumped up and threw us uninitiated ones into a great state of alarm,” said Cyn; “and instead of practicing for a drum corps, as I supposed, you were talking secretly, you sly creatures!” then turning to Clem, she asked, laughing, “what did you think when Nat dropped you so suddenly and completely?”

“What could I think, except that it was a caprice of hers,” he answered, laughing. “At first I thought she was vexed at my having gone to B a, but she denied that, and finally I believe I became angry myself, and concluded to let her have her own way. Nevertheless, I could not resist calling to see her, when I came to the city, and had I met with any encouragement, I should probably have declared myself, but I was annihilated without ceremony.”

“You would not have been, perhaps, had you been honest in the first place, instead of asking unnecessary questions about tariffs,” replied Nattie.

“Yes, but you were to recognize me by intuition you know, and I wanted to give you a chance,” responded Clem, quickly.

Nattie looked a trifle abashed.

“But I am quite sure I should have suspected it was you, had I not given you up as hopelessly redheaded,” she persisted; “why, almost the very first question the creature asked was, ‘do you see that twinkle?’ ”

“So he heard and treasured that remark to some purpose,” he said; “well, I will not dispute your intuition theory, since your last words assure me that I do not fall so far short of your imaginary C, as did my personator. I imagine your expression of countenance, on learning the intelligence, was hardly flattering to his vanity.”

Nattie, who had colored at the first of his remark, replied contemptuously,

“His self-conceit was too great to attribute my very uncordial reception to anything except, as he said, ‘my bashfulness.’ I presume it has afforded him great enjoyment to think how successfully he stepped into your shoes, and what a joke he had played upon me.”

“Upon us, you mean,” corrected Clem.

“Certainly; upon us,” Nattie replied, with another flush of color. “I remember how indifferent he seemed when I hinted that now we had met the chief pleasure of talking on the wire was gone. And I believe he didn’t actually say in so many words that he was C, but left me to understand it so.”

“And I am indebted to him for being such a lonesome, miserable fellow the latter part of my telegraphic career,” said Clem, rather savagely.

Nattie murmured something about the time passing pleasanter when there was someone to talk with, and Cyn asked, curiously,

“Then you have left the dot and dash business, have you?”

“Oh, yes. It was merely temporary with me,” Clem replied; then seating himself on the sofa beside Nattie, and drawing a chair up for Cyn, between himself and Jo⁠—Quimby being at the other end of the room, a prey to his emotions⁠—Clem continued;

“The truth of the matter is simply this, my father, with a pigheadedness worthy of Eugene Wrayburn’s M. R. F. in Our Mutual Friend, determined to make a doctor of me, not on account of any qualifications of mine, but for the simple reason that a doctor is a good thing to have in a family. But I, having an intense dislike to the smell of drugs, a repugnance to knowing anything more than absolutely necessary about the ‘ills that flesh is heir to,’ and decided objections to having the sleep of my future life disturbed, declined, and at the same time expressed a desire to go into the store with him, and become a merchant. Upon which my most immediate ancestor waxed wroth, called me, in plain, unvarnished words, a fool; and a pretty one I was to set myself up against his will! I, who couldn’t earn my salt without him to back me! Being of a contrary opinion myself, I determined to test my abilities in the salt line. I began,” looking at Nattie, merrily, “by salting you!”⁠—then explaining to Cyn, Jo, and the silent Quimby, “ ‘Salt’ is a term operators use, when one tries to send faster than the other can receive. I began my acquaintance with N by trying to ‘salt’ her. To go on with my narrative, I had learned to telegraph at college, where the boys had private wires from room to room, and being acquainted with one of the managers in our city, succeeded in obtaining that very undesirable office down there at X n, where I remained until my stern parent relented, concluded to hire a doctor instead of making one, and offered me the control of a branch of the firm here in your city. And here I am!”

“And isn’t it strange how you should have stumbled upon us, feast and all?” said Cyn, laughing.

Nattie was again disturbed by the plural pronoun, and also angry at herself for observing it.

“Isn’t it?” Clem answered merrily; “what a lucky fellow I am! You see, not being at all acquainted in the city, I hunted up my old college friend Quimby, who asked me to call on some lady friends of his, mentioning no names, which of course I was only too glad to do! Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered who those friends were! But I don’t know as I should have dared to reveal mvself, having been so often snubbed,”⁠—With a roguish glance at Nattie⁠—“if that story had not been told and the mystery solved. Imagine my dismay, though, at being called an ‘odious creature,’ and the surprise with which I listened to my own description! So