The News Broken, Whereupon an Engagement is Broken
At seven Percival found Uncle Peter at his hotel, still in abysmal depths of woe. Together they went to break the awful news to the unsuspecting Mrs. Bines and Psyche.
"If you'd only learned something useful while you had the chance," began Uncle Peter, dismally, as they were driven to the Hightower, "how to do tricks with cards, or how to sing funny songs, like that little friend of yours from Baltimore you was tellin' me about. Look at him, now. He didn't have anything but his own ability. He could tell you every time what card you was thinkin' about, and do a skirt dance and give comic recitations and imitate a dog fight out in the back yard, and now he's married to one of the richest ladies in New York. Why couldn't you 'a' been learnin' some of them clever things, so you could 'a' married some good-hearted woman with lots of money—but no—" Uncle Peter's tones were bitter to excess—"you was a rich man's son and raised in idleness—and now, when the rainy day's come, you can't even take a white rabbit out of a stove-pipe hat!"
To these senile maunderings Percival paid no attention. When they came into the crowd and lights of the Hightower, he sent the old man up alone.
"You go, please, and break it to them, Uncle Peter. I'd rather not be there just at first. I'll come along in a little bit."
So Uncle Peter went, protesting that he was a broken old man and a cumberer of God's green earth.
Mrs. Bines and Psyche had that moment sat down to dinner. Uncle Peter's manner at once alarmed them.
"It's all over," he said, sinking into a chair.
"Why, what's the matter, Uncle Peter?"
"Percival has—"