Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1874 — Little Liars. [ARTICLE]

Little Liars.

The Inter-Ocean desires to utter a few maledictions against liars. All liars are bad enough. The vain liar, the slander-r ous liar, the political liar, the piousliar, the plausible, improbable and marvelous liars, all these are subjects to be detested; but just now we wish to deal with another class entirely. These are the business liars. We dare say that humanity has suffered more annoyance, vexation and disappointment from these pests than all the others combined. And we do not refer now to. the gigantic cheat who carves out a fortune and fleeces a community by a bold and des--Berate falsehood. But we speak of the ttle liar; the foolish, absurd, contemptible little scamp, who lies without ever dreaming that he is committing an offense, and who is so entirely innocent that he actually does himself an injury in order to tell a falsehoood. Now to particularize:

Mrs. Featherby keeps a millinery store. She has a shop on State street, and you live south at the city limits. You have seen a hat that came from Mrs. Featherby’s. Your soul pants to have one like it. You fix up Dan and Joshua and Hezekiah, and start them to school. You charge Miggs to look out for fire, and, clutching your porte-monnaie, take a car for down town. You see Mrs. Featherby, frankly state your admiration of her wonderful genius, and leave an order for a hat precisely like your friend’s, Mrs. Highflier’s. You are smiled upon and assured that the hat shall be ready the day after to-morrow, at noon. How tediously that night, and the next day, and the next night drag themselves away! But at last the longed-for day arrives. You wait till past noon before you start. You will give Mrs. Featherby plenty of time. At last you go. You reach the shop in an hour and a half. Your face gleams with expectation as you enter; it fades with disappointment as you emerge from it. The hat is not done. It will be ready tomorrow. The next day you try it again. Mdlle. Therese was ill yesterday, and Mrs. Featherby could not think of permitting anyone else to touch the hat. However, she is well again to-day, and if you will send to-morrow you shall certainly have it. You send. You have grown weary of going yourself. You .give little Hezekiah minute instructions, roll him up in his father’s scarf, and start him off. Four hours after Hezekiah, with a very red nose and a very tumbled appearance, comes in at the alley door. He has the box. You open it and take out the hat. It is not trimmed as you directed; it is not the kind of velvet or felt you selected; and, finally, it doesn’t look any more like Mrs. Highflier’s* hat than a dandelion looks like a rose. The next day you take it back. Bat why go through the details. Every lady reader has been through this or a similar experience, and will bless the Inter-Ocean for saying that Mrs. Featherby deserves the tortures of the inquisition. Now, having stated the case for the ladies, let us look for a moment at the experience of the average gentleman. Mr. Plunkett orders a new suit from Trabb, the tailor. He can have the clothes Wednesday. They are not ready Wednesday, but will be done Friday. They are not done Friday, nor Saturday, and Sunday Plunkett stays at home and swears, instead of attending church and praying like a Christian. Finally he consoles himself with the reflection- that at least he will have his suit by the next Friday night, when he is invited to a party at the Spangleses. He calls around once or twice and reminds Trabb that his future happiness depends upon having those clothes, sure, Thursday. Trabb promises; he is always promising. Plunkett need not fear. He bhall have them all right for the party at any rate, if he don’t get them before. Friday morning comes; they are not finished, but they will be by noon; Plunkett calls at twelve; they will be ready at three; Trabb will send them round. Three arrives—fourfive—six. Plunkett gets frantic. He goes to Trabb’s. Trabb is excited He is

doing all he can. Sixteen tailors are at work on the breeches, and the great draper even has his coat off himself and is handling the goose with something of the old spirit which won him his first renown. Plunkett sits down and waits. After a while the garments are completed and hurriedly folded into a package. Plunkett grabs them and starts on a trot for the cars. At last he reaches home. His wife has been waiting for him with her bonnet on for an hour. The poor mau dashes to his room. What takes place then need not be told. A half hour later Plunkett appears with a very red face and looking wonderfully like a canary-bird with a waterproof on. “ They don’t fit me at all,” says he. “Fit!” says* Mrs. Plunkett, and then for the moment she is speechless with indignation. But it’s too late for words; too late to send excuses, and so, with mild and desperate thoughts rushing through his brain, Plunkett goes out into the night. How he looks, and feels, and behaves at the party it is not necessary to state; but itwrings one’s heart to see him making efforts to seem pleased and unconcerned, and laughing when the others laugh, and then stopping with a jerk and casting a glance of despair at his pantaloons. He stands up Co talk calmly and collectively to the beautiful Miss Brown, and is about to forget his misery for a moment, when he sees Benson whispering to Jones, and both glancing toward him and drawing their mouths down to suppress their smiles, and then all his anguish comes back again. To say that his evening’s pleasure is spoiled is the very faintest way of expressing it; and all because of this contemptible custom of lying. Why didn’t that rascally^,Trabb make the clothes as he agreed to? There’s no answer from Trabb, because the wretched destroyer of peace and tranquillity cannot answer. We might follow this through all the traders. Particularly is the boot and shoe maker addicted to ,the babii, it being considered perfectly safe to offer a reward of SSOO for any artist in this business w r ho ever had a pair of boots done according to promise. But this is enough. There is no sense, reason or

excuse for continuing this intolerable nuisance. If a tradesman will no! keen his word cut him. Don’t order a second time of one who needlessly lies to yon. If a shop-keeper comes back at you and says it’s no worse for him to lie about his work than it is tor his customers to lie about the pay, tell him to practice his plan of retaliation on the guilty alone, and not make the innocent suffer. We may reform this villainous practice in this way, but otherwise we shall go on, being made miserable through all time to come. —Chicago Inter-Ocean. * %