An Idyll of All Fools' Day
but half concealed a yawn and Antony's blood boiled within him. 

"Come," chirped Uncle Julius with a fatuous chuckle, "we are getting along famously! What did I tell you? Yes, indeed!" 

To this idiotic speech neither his nephew nor that nephew's new acquaintance made any further reply than two eloquent but totally ineffective glances. They were ineffective because the glance 7 as a medium of expression had not been included in Uncle Julius's aesthetic training. 

7

"And what are you going to do first, hey? Where does the great day begin--see the town sights, I suppose?" this Imbecile old relative maundered on. 

"It will give me great pleasure, if she wishes to see them," said Antony coldly, "to point out the various objects of local interest to Miss----" 

"Good gracious!" Uncle Julius interrupted, "what's come over the boy? 'Miss,' indeed! Didn't I tell you that this is my old godmother's own daughter's stepdaughter? 'Miss!' Her name is Nette." 

"Ah," said Antony. 

"And his," continued Uncle Julius, with a flip of his finger at his nephew and a wink at the young lady, "is Tony. Let's have no formality among chicks of your age. No, no; Tony's his name." 

"Indeed!" the young lady observed, gazing critically at the embarrassed possessor of the cognomen, "and a quaint little name, I am sure." 8 

8

She smiled with a perfunctory brightness and continued in some inexplicable manner to look down at her escort--though had she been presented with ten thousand dollars for every one of the inches over five feet in her height she would not have appeared before the world as any considerable heiress. The object of this remarkably achieved envisagement writhed inwardly. Uncle Julius rubbed his hands in maudlin delight at her appreciation of his nephew's baptismal acquirements, and she continued, prettily stifling a second yawn between her white little pointed teeth: 

"Since our young friend naturally pants to show us the beauties of his Alma Mater, let us by all means begin with them," and get them over, said the strangled yawn. 

Antony bit his tongue in his seething rage and the pain turned him crimson and wet-eyed. This did not escape the 
 Prev. P 5/52 next 
Back Top
Privacy Statement Terms of Service Contact