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Peck's Sunshine, a fiction by George W. Peck |
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The Queerest Name |
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_ There is a case in Chicago where a young man is going to apply to have his name changed. The man's name is Easus, and he is now about eighteen years old, and just beginning to go into society. It is alleged that he was engaged to be married to an heiress, but she has broken off the engagement until he can get his name changed. She was not very much mashed on the name, anyway, and Monday night, as she was with him coming out of Haverly's Theatre, something happened that broke her all up. The young man's father was a pious man, and he named his son Abijah. His companion nicknamed him "Bige." Coming out of the theatre with his intended on his arm, an old friend, a drummer for a Chicago grocery house, happened to see him, and he went up to him and said, "Why, Bije Easus, how are you?" Young Mr. Easus shook hands with his friend, and introduced him to his girl, and she looked at the profane drummer out of one corner of her eye and trembled for his soul as she thought how he would be sure to go to hell when he died. Mr. Easus explained to his friend as they walked out of the building, that he was engaged to the girl, and when they parted at the platform of the street car the drummer grabbed her by the hand and shook it as a terrier would a rat and said, "Well, Mrs. Bije Easus, that is to be, let me wish you many happy returns." Mr. Easus colored up, the girl was as mad as a wet hen when she pried her fingers apart, and they rode home in silence. At the gate she said to him, "Bije Easus, I never till to-night knew what a horrid name I was going to take upon myself, and I have made up my mind that I cannot go through the remainder of my natural life in Chicago, being alluded to as a 'little female Bije Easus.' Mr. Easus, I trust we part friends. If you can come to me by any other name, you would be sweet, but Bije Easus I will never have on my calling cards." The young man has employed a lawyer and will have his name changed. The girl had a narrow escape, and she may thank the drummer for calling her attention to it. _ |
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