We happens to crash right into the middle of it, Vee and me, when we drops in for our usual Sunday afternoon call on the Ellinses and finds these week-end guests of theirs puttin' it up to Mr. and Mrs. Robert to tell 'em what they ought to do. Course, this Mrs. Mackey is an old friend of Mrs. Robert's and we'd seen 'em both out there before; in fact, we'd met 'em when she was Mrs. Richard Harrington and Bruce was just a sympathetic bachelor sort of danglin' around and makin' himself useful. So it wasn't quite as if they'd sprung the thing on total strangers.
And, anyway, it don't rate very rank as a scandal. Not as scandals run. This No. 1 hubby, Harrington, had simply got what was coming to him, only a little late. Never was cut out to play the lead in a quiet domestic sketch. Not with his temperament and habits. Hardly. Besides, he was well along in his sporty career when he discovered this 19-year-old pippin with the trustin' blue eyes and the fascinatin' cheek dimples. But you can't tell a bad egg just by glancin' at the shell, and she didn't stop to hold him in front of a candle. Lucky for the suspender wearin' sex there ain't any such pre-nuptial test as that, eh? She simply tucked her head down just above the top pearl stud, I suppose, and said she would be his'n without inquirin' if that cocktail breath of his was a regular thing or just an accident.
But she wasn't long in findin' out that it was chronic. Oh yes. He wasn't known along Broadway as Dick Harry for nothing. He might be more or less of a success as a corporation lawyer between 10:30 and 5 p. m. in the daytime, but after the shades of night was well tied down and the cabarets begun takin' the lid off he was apt to be missin' from the fam'ly fireside. Wine, women and the deuces wild was his specialties, and when little wifie tried to read the riot act to him at 3 a. m. he just naturally told her where she got off. And on occasions, when the deuces hadn't been runnin' his way, or the night had been wilder than usual, he was quite rough about it.
Yet she'd stood for that sort of thing nine long years before applyin' for a decree. She got it, of course, with the custody of the little girl and a moderate alimony allowance. He didn't even file an answer, so it was all done quiet with no stories in the newspapers. And then for eight or ten years she'd lived by herself, just devotin' all her time to little Polly, sendin' her to school, chummin' with her durin' vacations, and tryin' to make her forget that she had a daddy in the discards.
Must have been several tender-hearted male parties who was sorry for a lonely grass widow who was a perfect 36 and showed dimples when she laughed, but none of 'em seemed to have the stayin' qualities of Bruce Mackey. He had a little the edge on the others, too, because he was an old fam'ly friend, havin' known Dick Harry both before and after he got the domestic dump. At that, though, he didn't win out until he'd almost broken the long distance record as a patient waiter, and I understand it was only when little Miss Polly got old enough to hint to Mommer that Uncle Bruce would suit her first rate as a stepdaddy that the match was finally pulled off.
And now Polly, who's barely finished at boardin' school, has announced that she intends to get married herself. Mommer has begged her weepy not to take the high dive so young, and pointed out where she made her own big mistake in that line. But Polly comes back at her by declarin' that her Billy is a nice boy. There's no denyin' that. Young Mr. Curtis seems to be as good as they come. He'd missed out on his last year at college, but he'd spent it in an aviation camp and he was just workin' up quite a rep. as pilot of a bombin' plane when the closed season on Hun towns was declared one eleventh of November. Then he'd come back modest to help his father run the zinc and tinplate trust, or something like that, and was payin' strict attention to business until he met Polly at a football game. After that he had only one aim in life, which was leadin' Polly up the middle aisle with the organ playin' that breath of Eden piece.
Well, what was a fond mommer to do in a case like that? Polly admits being a young person, but she insists that she knows what she wants. And one really couldn't find any fault with Billy. She had had Bruce look up his record and, barrin' a few little 9 a. m. police court dates made for him by grouchy traffic cops, it was as clean as a new shirt front. True, he had been born in Brooklyn, but his family had moved to Madison Avenue before he was old enough to feel the effects.
So at last Mrs. Mackey had given in. Things had gone so far as settlin' the date for the weddin'. It was to be some whale of an affair, too, for both the young folks had a lot of friends and on the Curtis side especially there was a big callin' list to get invitations. Nothing but a good-sized church would hold 'em all.
Which was where Bruce Mackey, usually a mild sort of party and kind of retirin', had come forward with the balky behavior.
"What do you think?" says Mrs. Bruce. "He says he won't go near the church."