A Fool and His Money

by George Barr McCutcheon

"Well," said he, slowly and deliberately, "why don't you set about it, then?"

He was so ridiculous that I thought for the fun of it, I'd humour him.

"Assuming that you are right in regard to my feelings toward her, Fred, what leads you to believe that I would stand a chance of winning her?" It was a silly question, but I declare I hung on his answer with a tenseness that surprised me.

"Why not? You are good looking, a gentleman, a celebrity, and a man. Bless my soul, she could do worse."

"But you forget that I am—let me see—thirty-five and she is but twenty-three."

"To offset that, she has been married and unhappy. That brings her about up to your level, I should say. She's a mother, and that makes you seem a good bit younger. Moreover, she isn't a sod widow. She's a grass widow, and she's got a living example to use as a contrast. Regulation widows sometimes forget the past because it is dim and dead; but, by George, sir, the divorced wife doesn't forget the hard time she's had. She's mighty careful when she goes about it the second time. The other kind has lost her sense of comparison, her standard, so to speak. Her husband may have been a rotter and all that sort of thing, but he's dead and buried and she can't see anything but the good that was in him for the simple reason that it's on his tombstone. But when they're still alive and as bad as ever,—well, don't you see it's different?"

"It occurs to me she'd be more likely to see the evil in all men and steer clear of them."

"That isn't feminine nature. All women want to be loved. They want to be married. They want to make some man happy."

"I suppose all this is philosophy," I mused, somewhat pleased and mollified. "But we'll look at it from another point of view. The former Miss Titus set out for a title. She got it. Do you imagine she'll marry a man who has no position—By Jove! That reminds me of something. You are altogether wrong in your reasoning, Fred. With her own lips she declared to me one day that she'd never marry again. There you are!"

He rolled his eyes heavenward.