New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, American
Across the floor Maggie sailed like a coquettish yacht convoyed by a
stately cruiser. And truly, her companion justified the encomiums of
the faithful chum. He stood two inches taller than the average Give and
Take athlete; his dark hair curled; his eyes and his teeth flashed
whenever he bestowed his frequent smiles. The young men of the Clover
Leaf Club pinned not their faith to the graces of person as much as
they did to its prowess, its achievements in hand-to-hand conflicts,
and its preservation from the legal duress that constantly menaced it.
The member of the association who would bind a paper-box maiden to his
conquering chariot scorned to employ Beau Brummel airs. They were not
considered honourable methods of warfare. The swelling biceps, the coat
straining at its buttons over the chest, the air of conscious
conviction of the supereminence of the male in the cosmogony of
creation, even a calm display of bow legs as subduing and enchanting
agents in the gentle tourneys of Cupid—these were the approved arms and
ammunition of the Clover Leaf gallants. They viewed, then, genuflexions
and alluring poses of this visitor with their chins at a new angle.
“A friend of mine, Mr. Terry O’Sullivan,” was Maggie’s formula of
introduction. She led him around the room, presenting him to each
new-arriving Clover Leaf. Almost was she pretty now, with the unique
luminosity in her eyes that comes to a girl with her first suitor and a
kitten with its first mouse.
“Maggie Toole’s got a fellow at last,” was the word that went round
among the paper-box girls. “Pipe Mag’s floor-walker”—thus the Give and
Takes expressed their indifferent contempt.
Usually at the weekly hops Maggie kept a spot on the wall warm with her
back. She felt and showed so much gratitude whenever a self-sacrificing
partner invited her to dance that his pleasure was cheapened and
diminished. She had even grown used to noticing Anna joggle the
reluctant Jimmy with her elbow as a signal for him to invite her chum
to walk over his feet through a two-step.
But to-night the pumpkin had turned to a coach and six. Terry
O’Sullivan was a victorious Prince Charming, and Maggie Toole winged
her first butterfly flight. And though our tropes of fairyland be mixed
with those of entomology they shall not spill one drop of ambrosia from
the rose-crowned melody of Maggie’s one perfect night.
The girls besieged her for introductions to her “fellow.” The Clover
Leaf young men, after two years of blindness, suddenly perceived charms
in Miss Toole. They flexed their compelling muscles before her and
bespoke her for the dance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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