By the way, when Barrett learned of it he exclaimed: “My dear boy, you don’t know what you’re doing. You are robbing me out of my only remaining daughter.”
“Not at all,” Lewis replied, with a slap on the back of his father-in-law elect. “I’m merely giving you another son.”
When the marriage day came Robson did not attend the ceremony; but he sent his daughter Alicia in his place, and gave her a check for five thousand dollars, drawn to Lewis’ order, but with emphatic orders not to part from it until Lewis and Miss Barrett were pronounced man and wife. When Alicia returned her father asked her if she had given Lewis the check.
The girl replied: “Yes, father.”
“What did he do and say?” Robson inquired impatiently.
“Why, father, he was so overcome that he cried for a minute after I gave it to him.”
“Egad!” squeaked Robson, “was that all? Why, I cried for an hour when I wrote it.”
Henry Dixey is an adept at the leisurely tale, which is a word picture from start to finish. Here is a sample:
In one of the country stores, where they sell everything from a silk dress and a tub of butter to a hot drink and a cold meal, a lot of farmers were sitting around the stove one cold winter day, when in came Farmer Evans, who was greeted with: