"Some grouch, Cousin Myra! What is it--shootin' pains
in the disposition?"
Vee snickers. "Did you mind very much, Torchy?" she asks.
"Me?" says I. "Oh, I was brought up on roasts--never knew much else.
But, I must say, I was gettin' a bit hot on your account."
"Don't," says she. "You see, I know all about Cousin Myra--why she's
like that, I mean."
"On a diet of mixed pickles and sour milk, is she?" says I--"or what?"
No, it wasn't anything so simple as that. It was a case of a romance
that got ditched. Seems that Myra'd been engaged once. No idle seashore
snap runnin' from Fourth of July to Labor Day, but a long-winded,
year-to-year affair. The party of the second part was one Hinckley, a
young highbrow who knew so much that it took the college faculty a long
time to discover that he was worth more'n an assistant bartender and
almost as much as a fourth-rate movie actor. Then, too, Myra's father
had something lingerin' the matter with him, and wouldn't let anybody
manage him but her. Hymen hobbled by both hind feet, as you might say.
They was keepin' at it well, though, each bearin' up patient and waitin'
for the happy day, when Myra's younger sister came home from
boardin'-school and begun her campaign by practisin' on the Professor,
just because he happened to be handy.
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