Then Lena would giggle. Not once, but seven giggles, something like those used in a spasm.
Then she would reply, "No, Simpson; it cannot be. Fate wills it otherwise."
Then Simpson would bite his finger-nails, pick his hat up out of the coal-scuttle, and say to Lena, "False one! You love Conrad, the floorwalker in the butcher shop. Curses on Conrad, and see what you have missed, Lena. I have tickets for a swell chowder party next Tuesday. Ah! farewell forever!"
Then Simpson would walk out and hunt up one of those places that can't get an all-night license and there, with one arm glued tight around the bar rail, he would fasten his system to a jag which would last a week.
Despair would grab him and, like Dike, he'd be Simpson with the souse thing for sure.
When he would recover strength enough to walk down town without attracting the attention of the other side of the street, he would call on Lena and say, "Lena, forgive me for what I done, but love is blind—and, besides, I mixed my drinks. Lena, I was on the downward path, and I nearly went to Heligoland."
Then Lena would say, "Oh, Simpsey, I wanted you to prove your love, but I thought you'd prove it with beer and not red-eye—forgive me, darling!"
Then they would kiss and make up, and the wedding bells would ring just as soon as Simp's salary grew large enough to tease a pocketbook.
But these days the idea is altogether different.
Children are hardly out of the cradle before they are arrested for butting into the speed limit with a smoke wagon.