The next morning we went up to police court in our old clothes. Judge
Scroggs looked at us sourly when our turn came.
"Young men," he said, "my daughter has admitted that she has been
foolish enough to engage herself provisionally to all of you, with the
idea of choosing the hero in this afternoon's games. I do not admire her
taste. I think she is indeed reckless to fall in love with collegians
when there are so many honest cab drivers and grocery boys to choose
from. But I have, in the interests of peace, consented to allow you to
compete this afternoon. You are discharged. I do this the more willingly
because I have seen you here before and shall again. You may go."
We did go, and when we got through that afternoon the knobby-legged
athletes from our rival schools looked like quarter horses plowing home
just ahead of the next race. Siwash won by an enormous lead and we three
were the stars of the meet. Why shouldn't we be when our fiancée sat in
a box in the grandstand and cheered us impartially? More than that, old
Scroggs sat with her and I have an idea that he got excited, too, in the
breath-catching parts.
I think that engagement business must have broken the old man's spirit,
or else so much association with college people began to waken dormant
brain cells in his head. The rest of the rioters got out of the
workhouse right away, and that fall he retired from the bench, declaring
that if he was to have a college student for a son-in-law, as looked
extremely likely, he needed to put in all of his time at home protecting
his property. In honor of his retirement we had a pajama parade which
was nine blocks long and forty-two blocks loud, and a platoon of six
policemen led the way.
Of course that engagement business left all sorts of complications.
Scroggs pestered his daughter for about a month to make her decision. He
seemed somewhat relieved when she finally announced that she couldn't;
but it wasn't much relief, after all, for by this time he couldn't walk
around his own house without falling over Petey Simmons. Just two years
ago I got cards to Petey's wedding. He and Martha are living in Chicago
in one of those flats where you have seven hundred and eighty-nine
dollars' worth of bath-room, and eighty-nine cents' worth of living
room, and which you have to lease by measure just as you would buy a
vest. If Petey hangs on long enough he is going to be a big man in the
banking business, too.
I forgot to clear up this Driggs mystery. The evening after the races,
Martha called up Petey Simmons. "Petey," said she, "I wish you would
tell me who this fourth man is that I'm engaged to. He doesn't seem to
be on the track team and I didn't catch his name. I don't mind having to
make up an excuse for being engaged to four men right on the spur of
the moment if it is necessary, but I'd at least like to know their
names."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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