When a Man Marries

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

FROM OFFICER FLANNIGAN TO MRS. MAGGIE FLANNIGAN, ERIN STREET.

Dear Maggie:

As soon as you receive this, go down to Mac and tell him the story as I tell you hear. Tell him I was walkin my beat, and I’d been afther seein Jimmy Alverini about doin the right thing for Mac on Monday, at the poles, when I seen a man hangin suspicious around this house, which is Mr. Wilson’s, on Ninety-fifth. And, of coorse, afther chasin the man a mile or more, I lose him, which was not my fault. So I go back to the Wilson house, and tell them to be careful about closin up fer the night, and while I’m standin in the hall, with all the swells around me, sparklin with jewels, the board of health sends a man to lock us all in, because the Jap thats been waiter has took the smallpox and gone to the hospitle. I stood me ground. I sez, sez I, you cant shtop an officer in pursute of his duty. I rafuse to be shut in. Be shure to tell Mac that.

So here I am, and like to be for a month. Tell Mac theres four votes shut up here, and I can get them for him, if he can stop this monkey business.

Then go over to the Dago Church on Webster Avenue and put a dollar in Saint Anthony’s box. He’ll see me out of this scrape, right enough. Do it at once. Now remember, go to Mac first; maybe you can get the dollar from him, and mind what you tell him.

Your husband, Tim Flannigan

FROM ME TO MOTHER—MRS. THEODORE McNAIR, HOTEL HAMILTON, BERMUDA.

Dearest Mother:

I hope you will get this before you read the papers, and when you DO read them, you are not to get excited and worried. I am as well as can be, and a great deal safer than I ever remember to have been in my life. We are quarantined, a lot of us, in Jim Wilson’s house, because his irreproachable Jap did a very reproachable thing—took smallpox. Now read on before you get excited. HIS ROOM HAS BEEN FUMIGATED, and we have been vaccinated. I am well and happy. I can’t be killed in a railway wreck or smashed when the car skids. Unless I drown myself in my bath, or jump through a window, positively nothing can happen to me. So gather up all your maternal anxieties and cast them to the Bermuda sharks.

Anne Brown is here—see the papers for list—and if she can not play propriety, Jimmy’s Aunt Selina can. In fact, she doesn’t play at it; she works. I have telephoned Lizette for some clothes—enough for a couple of weeks, although Dallas promises to get us out sooner. Now, dear, do go ahead and have a nice time, and on no account come home. You could only have the carriage to stop in front of the house, and wave to me through a window.