Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 246, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1914 — CURIOSITY AID PETER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CURIOSITY AID PETER

By DOROTHY DOUGLAS.

(Copyright, 1914, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) Peter had always been inquisitive. Even as a child his cariosity had been

a marked characteristic and had often been the bane of his mother’s existence. Edna Glover, who lives in the same street witlj Peter, could write love stories, but she could not use a typewriter. It was through her attempts to master her new mar

chine that Peter came to realize that he was entirely lacking in artistic sense. He was going, to business as ucual on a bright October morning when a bit of paper caught his eye. With his habitual interest in things that did not in the least concern him be picked the crumpled paper up on the end of his walking stick. It was a sheet of copy paper which had been used by a person evidently learning to use a typewriter. “i do-wteh,” he read, “that the young man in the gray suit, would select a pew tie and have his clothes pressed more often. He wouldn’t be at all bad looking if he possessed an atom of taste in his dress —but alas! he wears a green and brown tie, a soft blue hat and red socks. He would look stunning In brown, with a small dull gold tie.” Peter laughed aloud and fell to wondering who had watched him passing and with an eye bo critical. Peter fell to wondering whether the name, Edna Glover, so often repeated, was the typist’s name or merely a fictitious one. In the evening before he left the office Peter had decided to send a card to Edna Glover in the hope that the name was a real one. The card he sent reached Edna when she was having her early morning cup of tea. Martha, her faithful maid brought it to her. “I hate ordered a brown suit and purchased a dull gold tie. In the course of a day' or two you will sed me wearing them. Hope they please you. P. D.” Edna arched her fine brows in thought, then * smile leapt Into her ewes. "Oh,” Che gasped, “my papers must have blown about and he has picked one up. Isn’t that dreadful! ” The typewriting was progressing and Edna could do au, entire page without more than a half dozen mistakes before she had the pleasure of seeing, from behind her rose curtained windows, the brown suit Edna gasped at the wonderful change it madq In Peter. He certainly was good to look at and her eyes followed him until he had turned the corner to enter the subway. Peter was really proud of himself. He wondered why he had never worn brown before and thanked Edna In another' card. “Call me up at 49 Broda,” ho wrote. "I want to know if I have selected the right color. My name is Dean —Peter Dean.” Edna drew a sharp breath, half of anger and half of excitement when she read that card. She decided first to ignore the request, but during the afternoon her sense of the romantlo and perhaps a desire to write a story around Peter prompted her to call up the number. “This Is perfectly scandalous,” she told him when his most pleasing voice answered her on the telephone. “There is no possible scandal in it,” Peter's calm voice informed hpr. “I am a single man without any strings and I take it that you are In a like position. Yes?” His voice had a ring of laughter In It. “You are a frightfully bad typist,” he added. “I have Improved wonderfully lately,” said Edna, with an echo of his laughter. “What do you look like?" asked Peter. After a prolonged conversation Edna hung up the receiver and Peter called up Calvin Asten. **l say, .what 'do you know about Edna Glover?" he asked the astonished Asten. "Peach,” came back the prompt reply. “Have proposed to her a dozen times and intend to again tonight." "No you don’t,*’ said Peter. ‘Til tell you why later."