Mrs. Short was one of those “magnificent creatures” about which newspaper people and dandies “go on so,” in their respective cities throughout Yankeedoodledom; and having taken a husband merely to please Mr. Short, she concluded that she had a perfect right to choose a lover to please herself. Mrs. Short was a tall, majestic woman, with an almost military precision and elegance of carriage. She was one of those sartorial equivoques which the great tailor Nature sometimes suffers to go out of the shop—a full suit of regimentals made up into frock and petticoats. Her complexion was as pure and spotless as a French flower; her hair curled as gracefully about her—curling-tongs—as the young spring tendril round the vine; and her very particular friend was Lieutenant Long of the City Guard. The lieutenant was the exact counterpart of the lady—a military man apparently got up with starch and rice-paper, out of the remnants of a milliner’s shop. But he was not deficient in impudence, and made a pretty income from his thriving trade of trunk-maker. This necessarily brought him more or less acquainted with the invaluable stores of his country’s unread literature, and he even at length managed to get himself on good terms with some of the unappreciated authors and hangers-on of the press. A few suppers at Windust’s, judiciously applied to the reporters, and a thick cotton poultice, applied with equal judgment to each leg, made our hero pass with the public for “that excellent soldier and gallant officer, Lieut. Long,” and in society for a very useful and presentable man.
Mr. Short loved his wife—doted on his baby—and worshiped his cradle. The latter had even exceeded his most sanguine expectations, as is the case of General Tom Thumb with a remarkable number of editors; while, for my own part, that celebrated individual did not come up to my anticipations by several inches. Thus completely occupied, how was it to be expected that Mr. Short should be jealous? If any one had stolen his child—but that’s all humbug—people’s children, especially poor people’s, never are stolen!—or if the model of his new-fashioned cradle had been pirated, he might indeed have been aroused. But while these were all right, the one within the other, and both in their right places, was he not infinitely obliged to Lieutenant Long for his civilities to Mrs. Short? He detested Shakspeare (he supposed that the old humbug still kept his place upon the stage!) and abominated the opera, while his wife was enchantée with both. How very obliging, therefore, of his dear friend, Lieutenant Long, to take her so frequently to these places!—he even insisted upon paying for the tickets!
It was now spring, and Mrs. Short had indicated to her husband the propriety of taking another house and “moving.” The poor man—who entertained the keenest sense of his anti-packing deficiencies—was aghast at the bare idea. It was some time before he could recover the power of speech. When he did, the first use he made of it was to remonstrate.
“But, my dearest Julia, why should we move? Are we not so comfortable and happy here? We have such a nice garden, you know, and then we have just had the Croton put in, and the door-bell mended, and the blowers to all the grates painted black—why does my paragon wish to move?”
“Why? Why, because, because—I’m sure, Mr. Short, you’re very—because, doesn’t every body move? Besides, I’m determined I wont live stuck away in this vulgar part of the town any longer. I declare I’m quite ashamed to tell any body where I live—No. — Madison Street. Nobody lives west of Broadway.”
“Now, my dear angel—”
“Never mind your nonsense—you can save all that, Mr. Short, for little Miss Prim.”
[Mem. Ladies fond of flirting are always particularly jealous of their husbands.]
“My dear Julia, what do you mean about Miss Prim? I never spoke to her but twice in my life.”
“I don’t care—she’s a minx—and you don’t love me.”