Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1901 — A Horrid Mean Thing. [ARTICLE]

A Horrid Mean Thing.

They sat in a swing, half-hidden by the fragrant shrubbery of an east end lawn. She was trying to make him jealous, which he had penetration enough to descry and experience enough with her sex to remain provokingly calm. All the rapturous adjectives of her high-school vocabulary were pressed into praise of a rival, says the Memphis Scimitar. “He is just the most perfectly lovely man I ever met,” she fervently declaimed, clasping her hands above her heart and lifting her lustrous orbs moonward. “He must be a bird,” he suggested nonchalantly. “Such adorable eyes; such a low, musical voice, as full of soul as the murmur of a meadow brook. And, oh! he sings divinely.” “Sorry I never met your friend,” he said in a tone irritatingly practical, accompanied with a yawn artistically audible. “Oh, I do so want you to meet him. I know you will like him. He is fond of poetry and music, and he drives the loveliest horses ” “Eh! Whom does he drive for?” And a few minutes later the swing swung emptily.