Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1880 — A Dainty Handkerchief Talks With a Japanese Fan. [ARTICLE]

A Dainty Handkerchief Talks With a Japanese Fan.

A dainty handkerchief anti a* Japanese fan, the handkerchief carelessly thrust through the fan's sticks, were lying on a chair. “Well," said the handkerchief, “ How do you like this? We have had enough sea air at any rate, left out all night on this damp piazza. It is butrageous. I look like an old rag." “It is careless of her," answered the fan. “ I feel rheumatic, and lam sure my sticks are spoiled." “Spoiled! I should think so!" snapped the handkerchief; “all the varnish is coming off on me. I shall never be fit to be seen again, and I hate rag-bags." “It is better than the ash-heaps,” said the fan, drearily; “that is where I will be thrown at last. It is awful! Such dirty people pick one up." “Well, it is nicer to be picked up by a pleasant person," said the handkerchief. “That Mr. Cartwright now. He always picks me up so carefully when our lady let's me fall. I like him." f “Yes, I know,” said the fan; “but

*1 ~ ~ *v*>*lP why does she let 1 its fall so often? I wonder if ladies always jump up without looking what they, have ? It seetjia so. Up they get, down so|l dozens oi tilings, and off go the gentlemen to pick them up. They swear over it, too, sometimes, when they roll far. So a ball of worsted told me." . * . “Oh! ladles never think; It isn’t expectedP-’ said dm handkerchief, shortly. “ They are supposed to look pretty, that’s all! Dress does a good deal toward position. Our lady was very careful about her toilettes for'coming here. She has her handkerchiefs to match every dress. She came here to get into society, you know." t “ Did she?” said the fan, carelessly. “ What does that mean!" “Well, really," answered the handkerchief, contemptuously, “you seem, to know very little of the world; but I .suppose quite simple minded people live in Japan." ' : i ' “ Japan," laughed the fan, “ I never saw the place. Most of us are made in America and perfumed. It does just as well. But never mindthat. Tell me about society. What must one do to get there? Isita placeP” “A place," laughed the handkerchief in her turn. “I should think not, indeed. Society is people. Not everybody, bat the people." “What sort are they," asked the fan —“handsome?” > .{ • “Well, not always—sometimes.” “Clever?” . “No, not always—sometimes.” “Good people, perhaps?” “I am afraid not always.” “Rich?”

“ Often, but not always. Our lady is rich enough, you know. Her father made it in a glue factory.” ‘‘Well, what sort of people is society, then?” said the fan. “ Oh, people of family—the Wallingfords and the Shusans and the Gdttaras in our town—they are society. Blood, you know.” “I don’t know anything of the kind,” answered the fan, sturdily. *‘ I have heard that Mr. Wallingford’s grandfather kept a grog-shop, and that Mr. Gottard’s mother made flowers for a living before she was married. Is that all society isP” “You don’t understand,” said the handkerchief, crossly; “ you are rather stupid. You can tell society people in a minute, they have an air. They come into a room as if they owned everything in it, and so they do. Plenty of people bow down to them.” . ■ “ Ah! now you begin to talk,” saifi the fan. “I am not so stupid; you did not tell me properiv before. I see now, I see now. It is push which makes society; smiling and bending, but pushing alohg all the same, never minding snubs and! sliding into place after all. I have seen people get through crowds that way; it is the same sort of thing here. A smile and by yohr leave here, and a gruff push there, and a stiff beg pardon another time, but always getting through. Before people knoW it sometimes, there you are in front of them. They almost Wonder how you got there. Push, smile, push, and on you go; all ” “ Dear me,” interrupted the handkerchief, “there comes our lady—and with Mr. Gotturd, for all the world! How did she-get to him?” “.Why,”, said the fan, slyly, “he talked to her all last evening, very close, in this very spot—were you asleep? why didn’tyou tell me he whs society?” . • “It was so dark,” murmured the handkerchief, rather ashamed. “One can’t tell society people in the dark.” “ Oh, here it is,” said a bright, fresh young voice. VI am so glad. Dear old fan; I would not lose it for the world, now —” “Nor would I have you,” answered! Mr. Gottard, very softly. “It reminds me of one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent.” “On! oh!” whispered the fan to the handkerchief; “She is in society.”— Philadelphia Press.