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A short story by Artemus Ward |
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A Romance--Only a Mechanic |
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Title: A Romance--Only a Mechanic Author: Artemus Ward [More Titles by Ward] In a sumptuously furnished parlor in Fifth Avenue, New York, sat a proud and haughty belle. Her name was Isabel Sawtelle. Her father was a millionaire, and his ships, richly laden, ploughed many a sea. By the side of Isabel Sawtelle sat a young man with a clear, beautiful eye, and a massive brow. "I must go," he sed, "the foreman will wonder at my absence." "The FOREMAN?" asked Isabel in a tone of surprise. "Yes, the foreman of the shop where I work." "Foreman--shop--WORK! What! do YOU work." "Aye, Miss Sawtelle! I am a cooper!" and his eyes flashed with honest pride. "What's that?" she asked; "it is something about barrels, isn't it!" "It is!" he said, with a flashing nostril. "And hogsheads." "Then go!" she said in a tone of disdain--"go AWAY!" "Ha!" he cried, "you spurn me, then, because I am a mechanic. Well, be it so! though the time will come, Isabel Sawtelle," he added, and nothing could exceed his looks at this moment--"when you will bitterly remember the cooper you now so cruelly cast off? FAREWELL!" . . . . Years rolled on. Isabel Sawtelle married a miserable aristocrat, who recently died of delirium tremens. Her father failed, and is now a raving maniac, and wants to bite little children. All her brothers (except one) were sent to the penitentiary for burglary, and her mother peddles clams that are stolen for her by little George, her only son that has his freedom. Isabel's sister Bianca rides an immoral spotted horse in the circus, HER husband having long since been hanged for murdering his own uncle on his mother's side. Thus we see that it is always best to marry a mechanic. -THE END- GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |