Two Young People, Two Photographers And The Correspondence School Of Wooing

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Title:     Two Young People, Two Photographers And The Correspondence School Of Wooing
Author: George Ade [More Titles by Ade]

Once there was a lovely Two-Stepper who went to a Swell Hop and there met a Corkerina who had come to visit a School Friend.

He gavotted a few Lines with the Lily. They found it very easy to catch Step together and he did an expert Job of Piloting during the Waltz so as not to get her mussed up, and the consequence was that he made a Grand Impression.

Whenever a Debutter goes away to visit a School Friend, she always meets some Local Adonis who looks to her to be about 60 per cent. better than the stock of Johnnies in her own Burg. And after a Nice Girl has had a long and prosperous Run on the Home Circuit and then begins to curl up on the Edges and show signs of Frost, she will find it a very wise Shift to try new Territory and the Chances are that she will make a Ten-Strike.

To prove that this is no Idle Jest, it can be demonstrated that the marrying Girl usually goes on the Road a while before she closes a Contract.

The Two-Stepper could not forget the Girl from Another Town. She pulled out next Day but he looked up the Address and sent her the Dance Programme that he had found in his Overcoat Pocket. She wrote back that it was Awfully Sweet of him to remember poor little Me and then she asked one or two Questions. That gave him a Hunch, so he bought a new kind of Writing Paper, said to be the Latest Agony, and he wrote a nice Long Letter in which he told her that she was very easy to look at, and that when it came to picking them up and setting them down in the Slow and Dreamy, she made all the other Girls of his Acquaintance look like a Set of Cripples.

She returned the Serve with one of these chummy Epistles, written on all sides of the Paper, with the P.S. crawling up one Margin like a Pea-Vine. She chucked in a few mushy Extracts from the Oatmeal School of Thought and asked him the Name of his Favorite Poet.

Her Pace was a trifle Swift for Harry J., who had derived his Education from the Sporting Section of the Daily Papers, but he bought a Lover's Guide and a Dictionary and decided to stay in.

The size of it was that little Harry had been Harpooned all the way through. He was the original Sweetheart a la Brochette. He carried with him, Night and Day, a Vision of Her in the $200 Rig that she had flashed on the Night of the Party. It never occurred to him that she could wear any other Costume. He would close his Eyes and try to hear once again the dulcet and mellifluous Tones of that Voice which, to him, sounded as Good as an AEolian Harp moved by gentle Zephyrs within a Bower of Orchids costing $7 each.

So they exchanged Photos.

Next to the Miniature painted on Ivory, the Modern Photo is the prize Bunk of the Universe.

A successful Photographer, who has learned the Tricks and made a slight Study of Human Nature, can take a Grass Widow of 48, who is troubled with Wild Hairs and other Excess Ornaments, and by tampering with the Negative, he can make her out to look something like Ethel Barrymore. Then she can send the Picture to her Relations who live a long way off and they will never know the Difference.

The Girl sent Harry a High Art Panel of herself, in which she was looking at something in a Tree, and when he gazed at it, he had a Palpitation and said, "This is better than I thought it was."

He told himself that it would be a Pleasure and a Privilege to walk up to something like that the 1st of every Month and hand it the Envelope.

He got a clean Shave and put on his Other Clothes and went and had himself Taken by an Artist who charged $8 a Dozen--$4 for the Pictures and $4 to square his Conscience.

This Specialist could take any Set of Misfit Features and rearrange them into a Work of Art. He put Harry in front of the Bull's-Eye and scrooged him around so as to blanket the White Wings as much as possible and then he told him to think of Money and look Pleasant.

When the Pictures were delivered, Harry realized for the first time that he was a Beautiful Creature. He sent one to the Girl and wrote that it was a bum Likeness and did not do him Justice, and so on.

In acknowledging Receipt, she cut out the "Dear Mister" and came right at him with "Dear Friend," which gave him such a Stroke of Joy that he did very little Work that Day.

Harry did not have Gumption enough to evolve any deep System for landing a Tid-Bit, but he had accidentally hit upon the Cinch Method.

So long as Courtship consists of sending idealized Cabinets and exchanging Nice Long Letters, there is but little chance of making Miscues. He never drops in of an Afternoon to find her in a Blue Wrapper and drying her Hair and she never catches him smelling of Cigarettes.

When it comes down to close Work in a Parlor, there is always the Risk of having Herbert Buttinsky on hand to make his Party Call. He who tells his Love by U.S. Mail never hears anything about the Third Party. He lives in the sweet Delusion that he has bought up the whole House.

Harry's Letters to the Girl and the Girl's Letters to Harry became more and more on that Order, until at last they began to burn holes in the Mail Bags.

After comparing her Picture with all the Parlor Favorites that he met on his Social Rounds, he realized that she outclassed all other Representatives of her sex.

In her cosy Flat, far away, she had him propped up on the Piano in a Silver-Gilt Frame and featured to beat the Cars. Any one who dropped in to see her was made to understand that he was merely an Understudy, who was being used as a Time-Killer.

She used to write to Harry and tell him about her Callers and what Chumps they were, and then let him draw his own Conclusions as to who was the real white-haired Papa.

Finally Harry took an Overdose of Nerve Food and asked her right out, would she? The answer came back by Wire and the same Day he sent a sealed Express Package containing the Ring.

After which they began to lay Plans to have a Wedding and become better acquainted.

To be continued in our Next.

* * * * *

MORAL: Absence makes the Heart grow foolish.

[The end]
George Ade's short story: Two Young People, Two Photographers And The Correspondence School Of Wooing

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