Shrugging his shoulders as though to shrug aside absolutely any possible further responsibility concerning, "little brother," Stanton began to dig down deeper into the box. Then suddenly all the grin came back to his face.
"And here are some sample wall papers that she sent me for 'our house'," he confided, flushing. "What do you think of that bronze one there with the peacock feathers?-say, old man, think of a library-and a cannel coal fire-and a big mahogany desk-and a red-haired girl sitting against that paper! And this sun-shiny tint for a breakfast-room isn't half bad, is it?-Oh yes, and here are the time-tables, and all the pink and blue maps about Colorado and Arizona and the 'Painted Desert'. If we can 'afford it,' she writes, she 'wishes we could go to the Painted Desert on our wedding trip.'-But really, old man, you know it isn't such a frightfully expensive journey. Why if you leave New York on Wednesday-Oh, hang it all! What's the use of showing you any more of this nonsense?" he finished abruptly.
With brutal haste he started cramming everything back into place. "It is nothing but nonsense!" he acknowledged conscientiously; "nothing in the world except a boxful of make-believe thoughts from a make-believe girl. And here," he finished resolutely, "are my own fiancée's thoughts-concerning me."
Out of his blanket-wrapper pocket he produced and spread out before the Doctor's eyes five thin letters and a postal-card.
"Not exactly thoughts concerning you, even so, are they?" quizzed the Doctor.
Stanton began to grin again. "Well, thoughts concerning the weather, then-if that suits you any better."
Twice the Doctor swallowed audibly. Then, "But it's hardly fair-is it-to weigh a boxful of even the prettiest lies against five of even the slimmest real, true letters?" he asked drily.
"But they're not lies!" snapped Stanton. "Surely you don't call anything a lie unless not only the fact is false, but the fancy, also, is maliciously distorted! Now take this case right before us. Suppose there isn't any 'little brother' at all; suppose there isn't any 'Painted Desert', suppose there isn't any 'black sheep up on a grandfather's farm', suppose there isn't anything; suppose, I say, that every single, individual fact stated is false-what earthly difference does it make so long as the fancy still remains the truest, realest, dearest, funniest thing that ever happened to a fellow in his life?"
"Oh, ho!" said the Doctor. "So that's the trouble is it! It isn't just rheumatism that's keeping you thin and worried looking, eh? It's only that you find yourself suddenly in the embarrassing predicament of being engaged to one girl and-in love with another?"
"N-o!" cried Stanton frantically. "N-O! That's the mischief of it-the very mischief! I don't even know that the Serial-Letter Co. is a girl. Why it might be an old lady, rather whimsically inclined. Even the oldest lady, I presume, might very reasonably perfume her note-paper with cinnamon roses. It might even be a boy. One letter indeed smelt very strongly of being a boy-and mighty good tobacco, too! And great heavens! what have I got to prove that it isn't even an old man-some poor old worn out story-writer trying to ease out the ragged end of his years?"
[Illustration: Some poor old worn-out story-writer]
"Have you told your fiancée about it?" asked the Doctor.
Stanton's jaw dropped. "Have I told my fiancée about it?" he mocked. "Why it was she who sent me the circular in the first place! But, 'tell her about it'? Why, man, in ten thousand years, and then some, how could I make any sane person understand?"
"You're beginning to make me understand," confessed the Doctor.
"Then you're no longer sane," scoffed Stanton. "The crazy magic of it has surely then taken possession of you too. Why how could I go to any sane person like Cornelia-and Cornelia is the most absolutely, hopelessly sane person you ever saw in your life-how could I go to anyone like that, and announce: 'Cornelia, if you find any perplexing change in me during your absence-and your unconscious neglect-it is only that I have fallen quite madly in love with a person'-would you call it a person?-who doesn't even exist. Therefore for the sake of this 'person who doesn't exist', I ask to be released."
"Oh! So you do ask to be released?" interrupted the Doctor.
"Why, no! Certainly not!" insisted Stanton. "Suppose the girl you love does hurt your feelings a little bit now and then, would any man go ahead and give up a real flesh-and-blood sweetheart for the sake of even the most wonderful paper-and-ink girl whom he was reading about in an unfinished serial story? Would he, I say-would he?"
"Y-e-s," said the Doctor soberly. "Y-e-s, I think he would, if what you call the 'paper-and-ink girl' suggested suddenly an entirely new, undreamed-of vista of emotional and spiritual satisfaction."
"But I tell you 'she's' probably a BOY!" persisted Stanton doggedly.
"Well, why don't you go ahead and find out?" quizzed the Doctor.
"Find out?" cried Stanton hotly. "Find out? I'd like to know how anybody is going to find out, when the only given address is a private post-office box, and as far as I know there's no sex to a post-office box. Find out? Why, man, that basket over there is full of my letters returned to me because I tried to 'find out'. The first time I asked, they answered me with just a teasing, snubbing telegram, but ever since then they've simply sent back my questions with a stern printed slip announcing, "Your letter of --is hereby returned to you. Kindly allow us to call your attention to the fact that we are not running a correspondence bureau. Our circular distinctly states, etc."
"Sent you a printed slip?" cried the Doctor scoffingly. "The love-letter business must be thriving. Very evidently you are by no means the only importunate subscriber."
"Oh, Thunder!" growled Stanton. The idea seemed to be new to him and not altogether to his taste. Then suddenly his face began to brighten. "No, I'm lying," he said. "No, they haven't always sent me a printed slip. It was only yesterday that they sent me a rather real sort of letter. You see," he explained, "I got pretty mad at last and I wrote them frankly and told them that I didn't give a darn who 'Molly' was, but simply wanted to know what she was. I told them that it was just gratitude on my part, the most formal, impersonal sort of gratitude-a perfectly plausible desire to say 'thank you' to some one who had been awfully decent to me these past few weeks. I said right out that if 'she' was a boy, why we'd surely have to go fishing together in the spring, and if 'she' was an old man, the very least I could do would be to endow her with tobacco, and if 'she' was an old lady, why I'd simply be obliged to drop in now and then of a rainy evening and hold her knitting for her."
"And if 'she' were a girl?" probed the Doctor.
Stanton's mouth began to twitch. "Then Heaven help me!" he laughed.
"Well, what answer did you get?" persisted the Doctor. "What do you call a realish sort of letter?"
With palpable reluctance Stanton drew a gray envelope out of the cuff of his wrapper.
"I suppose you might as well see the whole business," he admitted consciously.