Letters from a Son to His Self-Made Father / Being the Replies to Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

by Charles Eustace Merriman

"She could annihilate him with a look," said another.

"Ah, that's just it," was Giles' reply. "He don't give her a chance. You see, fellows, it's this way. The first time, years ago, that there was a difference between them, Eaton dropped the subject and came down town. Two or three hours later he called Mrs. E. on the 'phone. He was in the booth fully three-quarters of an hour and when he came out his face was as red as a boiled lobster. But, as I happen to know, he won his point. It was about inviting a certain man and his wife to dinner. Mrs. Eaton objected because they were not in her set. Eaton wanted them because the man was nibbling at his bait in a big deal. They went to the dinner."

As there were several married men in the gathering, Corey was bombarded with questions as to his partner's secret. At last he said: "Well, I'll tell you, if you'll never quote me as your authority."

As you, father, can be depended upon for secrecy, I am not violating confidence.

"You see," said Corey, "Homer has a big bass voice and he could argue the Sphynx out of the sand or a New Yorker out of his conceit. The combination of voice and argument is irresistible—through the telephone—and Mrs. Eaton always wilts when he's held the line for a few minutes. Meek as Moses at home, he's a tyrant over his private wire. I honestly think that he has Mrs. E. hypnotized and that the sound of his ring puts her in a receptive mood. Homer confessed as much to me one day when he said, 'Giles, my boy, the puny little man with a bass voice finds his best friend in the telephone.'"

Although I am not in the light-weight class, and favor in voice Jean rather than Edouard de Reszke, I think I can see a valuable suggestion in the Homer-Aristotle-Eaton method. An argument conducted from a distance certainly cannot end in woman's last resource and most potent argument—tears. I trust you will not fancy that I anticipate any domestic infelicity. I am only following your rule of being well prepared for all emergencies. I certainly intend to be a kind, loving, and—within my rights—pliable husband. Helen is a sweet-natured girl, but I don't expect her to be all sugar-cane and molasses. She'll scarcely equal in complacence the wife of a few very unhappy years, who, when her friends advised her to leave the husband who neglected and abused her, stood up in his defence and insisted that he was far kinder than they thought.

"Why," she said, "it was only a few months ago that he celebrated the anniversary of our marriage—our wooden wedding."

This was too much for her sister, who had spent several weeks with her at the time, to stand. "Wooden wedding, indeed!" she cried; "the only wooden wedding you had was when your brute of a husband came home and knocked you down with a chair!"

It is surprising what a different thing the world becomes when a fellow is in love. I don't want to be a silly ass just because the prettiest, dearest girl on the footstool said "yes" instead of the "no" I really deserved, but I must tell somebody how happy I am. If I had money enough and was a sort of czar at whom people couldn't laugh without arrest for lese majeste, I'd have all the church bells rung, fire salutes on the lake front and send up balloons with Helen's name on 'em in twenty-seven foot letters. Until I met Helen Heath I thought I should never marry; in fact, I considered myself immune. But I hadn't seen her three times before she had me under her thumb, and the minute a girl has a fellow there, he, strangely enough, wants her hand. And I'm to have it and her heart with it, and she—well, she's to have me and the fifty per that you dole out to me. Occasionally I have the blues, declare that I'm not fit for her and feel as I felt on the road when I finally buncoed some confiding grocer to order a bill of our goods.

I'm in a pretty tough dilemma, anyway, and unless you help me out I'll have difficulty in keeping my footing. When a fellow's head over heels in love and up to his ears in debt, it's certainly time for somebody to throw him a life-preserver. You, my dear father, can knock the cork jackets off all the coastguards in the service in this particular branch of the life-saving business, by just getting your fountain pen busy over a check-book. And how you would be repaid! We—and ours—would bless you far down the thundering ages. Think it over and cut your Boston visit short. I'm afraid for you in the Hub, anyway. You are very likely to get into trouble. Do you know, for instance, that it is believed by the best Boston families that capital punishment is a very light penalty for committing a solecism? Pray be careful. I do not wish to inherit through a tragedy.