The Viola Brothers Shore Mystery
Page 33
“Then I didn’t tell you about Aunt Mathilde’s legacy?”
“A legacy? No! What?”
“Poor Aunt Mathilde! All her life she’s been a slave to an old uncle because he promised her when he died he’d leave her something. And then he had to go and die two days after they got a judgment against Aunt Mathilde, and the five thousand dollars she’s been waiting for all her life and the insurance just covered it. What do you think of that for luck?”
“Your aunt got a legacy?” Irving was so excited he almost tipped his chair over backward, and had to seize the edge of his desk to steady himself. “She’s good for the money?”
Neil nodded sadly.
“She got word that she was heir to five thousand dollars just two days after they got a judgment against her for that much. I thought I told you.”
Irving shook his head from side to side.
“Th—th—that’s really a schlemazel—the poor woman! What’s she gonna do?”
Neil began to laugh reminiscently.
“I can see that Arthur isn’t given to talking about his clients’ affairs, or you would have heard. Poor Aunt Mathilde was so sore at uncle she got up on her ear for once in her life and decided to take things in her own hands. She asked me what she should do. I gave her Arthur’s’ number. I knew if there was anything she could do he’d tell her what it was. Well, you know Arthur.
“He found out there were other things uncle had put in her name, and she grabbed them, and so she’ll come out all right even if the verdict is upheld. For once she’s slipping it over on uncle. Every time I think of it I could die laughing.”
But Irving had no laugh in him.
“Your poor uncle. My enemies gesugt such a luck!”
“What’s that? Luck? Thought you didn’t believe in luck!”
“I don’t,” said Irving—“really. Only if there is such a thing—hard luck, I mean—your uncle is certainly got it.”
“You said it! He’s had hard luck all his life. But you, you big stiff, everything you touch breaks right for you. You’ve got the real article, ten carat, blue white. You know there’s a saying, ‘Jew luck is better than Christian science.’”
Irving’s face broke into the first smile he had been able to conjure up in forty-eight hours.
“That’s a good one, Neil! By golly, I got to tell Bessie! That’s takisch a good one! ‘Jew luck is better than Christian science!’ When I think your uncle, with insurance and the car in his wife’s name and everything, runs over a woman and it costs him right away five thousand dollars—and I got no insurance and the car ain’t in my wife’s name and I ain’t got even a license, and I run over a woman and it don’t cost me a cent, because it should just happen the woman is my own mother-in-law—maybe there is such a thing—luck. And maybe I got it—unbeschriehen,” he added hastily.
PERCHANCE
Originally appeared in All-Story Weekly, December 15 1917.
I never made a single prayer—
I never saw God anywhere.
I said I could not feel the need
Of any God—or any creed.
I said it boastfully.
The Little Brother has gone to France…
Do you think your God perchance—perchance—
Would hear a furtive, whispered prayer
For a Little Brother—Over There—
Would He? Would He?
JUDGEMENT, UMPIRE!
Originally appeared in All-Story Weekly, June 9 1917.
There was a little sock,
And it had a little clock
In a spot that was not exactly hidden;
And when it was on Belle,
It looked very, very well—
But when it was on Aunt Louise—it didden!
MY FRIEND
Originally appeared in All-Story Weekly, May 31 1919.
Well I know there can never be
Thought of love between you and me.
Two the roads we travel by—
Two the lives that between us lie.
It is enough for me to feel
You are my friend for wo or weal—
Enough for me to touch your hand
And know—somehow—that you understand.
To feel—somehow—that you are there
And in some dear, strange way—you care.
To know that you will be my friend
Always—always until the end.
I never loved you and never will;
And still—and still—
IN JUNE
Originally appeared in All-Story Weekly, June 21 1919.
I could not say
If your eyes were gray—
I never knew your name—
Nor where you went
When the night was spent
Nor whence it was you came.
But once when the moon
Was full, in June,
She called my youth into flower—
And something in you
Called to me, too—
And I loved you for an hour.
AFTER A DAY AND A YEAR
Originally appeared in All-Story Weekly, June 14 1919.
I met you after a day and a year,
And you said: “Well, well, will you look who’s here!”
There was a day we walked through the park
Before the twilight was lost in the dark—
Dreams are made of the things you said that day,
And the things you did not have to say.
And I said: “Winthrop! How’ve you been?
My saints and stars, but you’re getting thin!”
Once we wandered hand in hand
Along the edge of the sea-kissed sand—
Along the edge of the sand-kissed sea
Together into Arcady.
And you said: “Well, upon my life!
Vi! I want you to meet my wife!”
There was the day we said good-by,
With tears that life could never dry—
Our youth lay buried—our sun had set—
Love like ours could not forget.
I met you after a day and a year
And you said: “Well, well, will you look who’s here!”
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