Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 66, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1919 — All for Sadie. [ARTICLE]

All for Sadie.

By NEWTON A. FUESSLE

(Copyright.) The Lloyd School of Scientific Beautification boasted imposin-g, two-color letter-heads, bearing the picture of the 12-story Ramge building and that of .a handsome lady in evening dress, la-beled-“Mtner Josephine Lloyd, presiident.” • • —— —— The school, in reality, consisted of one Harry Lloyd Rugglesford, one rebuilt typewriter, one peroxidized stx-a-week stenographer, one second-hand roll-top desk, and a small dingy room on the top floor of the Ramge building. The pictured building on the stationery was, therefore, a case of metonomy, and that of the shoulder show a gentle fake.

H. Lloyd Rugglesford was president, secretary, treasurer, board of directors, and office boy of the school, along tfith its faculty of able teachers and far-famed authorities on hair-dressing, facial massage, manicuring, and chiropody, and kindred erudite and recondite subjects. His course of Instruction was by correspondence. It comprised 12 lessons. The fee was S2O-in-advance-you-pay-but-once-results-guaranteed.’ He advertised in newspapers and western magazines whose advertising managers were not yet overwhelmed by advertising ref Orth. When the doctor’s followup system was slow in convincing the village belles that they should be scientifically beautified, he made haste to hold forth the lure of a special rate of $15.42 —$12,36 —$9.18 —$7.29 —$3.05 —or $1,77. He gauged his haste and figures by the quality of the stationery upon .which mademoiselle had propounded her inquiries. As a judge of human nature —I mean feminine nature, for there Is a difference —by the stationery route, Harry Lloyd Rugglesford was an adept. The twelve printed lessons cost him fourteen* cents. Advertising he figured at fifteen cents an inquiry. Office rent was seven dollars a month. The depreciation of the rebuilt and of the P. B. stenographer were small. Overhead expenses were less. Hence his sound judgment allowed him not infrequently to descend to the one dollar and seventy-seven cents mark. , Forgive me, reader, for this lagging start and the arrray of dull statistics. I apologize also to the editor, the linotype man and the proofreader. Anon will I endeavor to redeem myself.

Do you crave romance, love, osculation? A dal/ of pathos, a shift of scene, a few surprises? A villain, brief paragraphs, lively conversation? Oh very well. Perhaps I can accommodate you. f "Twas June. How’s that for a telescoped paragraph? H. Lloyd Rugglesford swung jauntily off the trolley car, winked at the man on the corner decorated with the sign, “Please Help the Blind,” received an answering wink, paused at the florist's, purchased a 50-c6nt bunch of violets,"and was elevated~t*r the twelfth floor of the Ramge building. The doctor of beauty entered the beauty school with a satisfied air. Sadie, the stenographer, was pounding out form letter No. 7. That same epistle was calculated to plunge the fair recipient into the seventh inferno of despair because she had not yet purchased a money order and essayed the route of scientific beautification. Form letter No. 7 was a masterpieee of selling talk on the scientific elimination of pimples, freckles, moles, blotches, birthmarks, hair on the face, ingrown fingernails and the like. “Hallo. Sade,” said the beauty doctor. “I believe you said you liked violets. I’ve bought yon a few.” He handed her his offering with a truly Elizabethan bow. “Ever so much,. Harry,” she said gaily, raising the bouquet to her pretty retrousse nose. “I haven’t saw as swell a hunch as this all spring. You’re there with the keen'eye for nifty flowers, all right. Them roses the other day. was too dear for anything.” “Quit kidding, Sade,” said the beauty -d%ftor, smiling archly. “You know that nothing’s too good for you. Anything much in the way of mall today?” Sadie handed him a bundle of letters. * p t An examination of their contents disclosed 14 money orders, eight festive letters of warm commendation of the course, 19 vigorous kicks from disgruntled students, six threats to report /be institution to the post office authorities if certain sums were not forthwith returned; and 22 answers to advertisements. “Anything startling, Harry?” Inquired Sadie, pausing in her clatter. “Same old thing,” he rejoined. “Kicks and kopeks galore, and 22 new nibbles.” “Well, ain’t that Just fine!”• rejoined the private secretary, renewing her mastication of the chicle and her attack on the rebuilt. Harry returned to his morning’s mail, strove to translate the aspect of the 22 Inquiries Into terms of dollars and cents, but his thought** persisted La drifting into other channels. And this was the picture that floated before hl% mind.: He saw himself in a little flat. It was breakfast time, Opposite him/ Across the breakfast food, bacon and

pot of stapling Young Hyson, he beheld a fair young creature, with red cheeks, eyes like violets, retrousse nose, and hair of dainty, drug-store flaxen hue. u You guessed it, reader. It was Sadie.' ! For weeks had this wonderful* picture hung tn Harry’s mind. For weeks had he argued tne question or tnnrriage pro and con. At times he had been on the point Of laying bare his soul and begging Sadie to go with him to the courthouse and clergy, and thus make him the happiest beauty doctor on earth. - Yet, always, before he seize her fair hand and begin his matrimonial canvass, a still small voice lmd warned him That before he hitched his chßTtot to a marriage license lie must needs address Satan in the terms of the Biblical command, eschew his undignified and dangerous calling, and cast about him for a more genteel and desirable vocation. He knew that already a post-office inspector was camping on his trail, and he knew not the day nor the hour when a cruel and untimely governmental jolt would relegate the institution of scientific beautification into the discard. Incessantly had the sinister vision of the post-office Inspector been haunting him, flitting into his dream by night, harassing his thoughts by day. What —marry Sadie while standing thus upon the thin ice of his professional life? No, it wouldn’t be right to commit such a reckless act. He had therefore cast about him for a buyer upon whose shoulders to unload the institution of latter-day learning. And yesterday he had found a man who had offered him a thousand dollars for the gay' enterprise, forever to have and to hold. He had accepted the offer, and closed the deal with impatient dispatch. And now he had resolved to turn his youthful energies into the real-estate business, place a “best investment” upon Sadie’s finger, and become a desirable citizen beyond the pale of postoffice inspectors and kindred worries of his hitherto dangerous pursuits. _u Little wonder that Harry’s thoughts were thronged with flatirons, flapjaeks, frying pans and fluffy kimonos instead of with the unregenerate details of a business taboo! Harry pulled himself together, wheeled his chair about with a suddenness that startled Sadie, and said : “Sade, I’ve been wanting to tell you something for a good many weeks.” “What’s on your mind, kiddo?” asked the girl coyly. “Well,” pursued the beauty doctor, “I’ve come to the conclusion that this correspondence school graft isn’t exactly the stunt for an ambitious young chap like me. I’ve been cleaning up quite a bit of velvet in it, but the fact Is it’s not precisely on the level. You know that, Sade.

"It ain’t the sort of business that a man would like to have his wife, for instance, tell the neighbors her husband was in. It ain’t what he’d like to leave to his son when it came to an aerial in the direction of the sweet by-and-by. “Worse than that, there’s been a post-office inspector hanging round here for a couple of weeks trying to get a line on the institution. I’ve stopped him and swapped conversation with him a number of times myself. He’s one of these smooth guys, and never tipped it off was inter'ested In tlse school at all. “But I’ve caught him wandering round here entirely too often to make me feel comfortable. His snooping round here is getting'on my nerves, Sade. and I’ve decided to sell and get out from under before they let something drop on me. “My successor takes charge tomorrow. I’m going to take a whirl at the real-estate business, Sade. What do you think of that?” he added triumphantly, with a conscious blush of pride. "Oh, get out,” s'aid Sadie. “Are you on the level?” * “On the dead level, Sade. And listen,he continued, drawing his chair closer to hers. “I’m doing it all for you, girlie. “It will be hard for me, awfully hard, to break into anything like the real-estate business after being in this correspondence work so lonjt, and I’ve a hunch I’ll have a hard time getting to like the new business, but I’m doing it for you, so that I can be on the les r el and decent and look folks in the face from now oh. “You’ve had me on the run ever since you began pounding out form letters for me. I’m all to the psychopathic about you. You’ve panhandled my pump for fair, Sade. and I want you to marry me. Gee. but I love you, kiddo. and I’ve got Just the coziest little flat all picked out!” Harry rose, took a step in Sadie’s direction, then suddenly paused. A strange look had come into Sadie’# face. “I’m awfully sorry. Harry," she said, “awfully sorry. But you know that post-office inspector you saw round here? Well, he ain’t been investigating the school at all. He’s been round here to see me — And —well—him and I was married yesterday at noon.” P... S.—Somehow, the moral of my story has become slightly twisted- It is either: “He who hesitates Is lost,” or “Act In baste and repent at leisure.” You may take your choice.