The Cambria Freeman

How Peebles Asked the Old Man.

BY JOHN QUILL.

Peebles had just asked Mr. Merriweather's daughter if she would give him a lift out of bachelordom, and she had said "yes." It therefore became absolutely necessary to get the old man's permission, so, as Peebles said, that arrangements might be made for hopping the conjugal twig.

Peebles said he'd rather pop the interrogatory to all of old Merriweather's daughters, and his sisters, and his female cousin, and his aunt Hannah in the country, and the whole of his female relations, than ask old Merriweather. But it had to be done, and so he sat down and studied out a speech which he was going to disgorge to old Merriweather the very first chance he got to shy it at him. So Peebles dropped in on him on Sunday evening, when all the family had rendered around to class meeting, and found him doing a sum in beer measure, trying to calculate the exact number of quarts his interior could hold without blowing the head off of him.

"How are you, Pee b?" said old Merriweather, as Peebles walked in as white as a piece of chalk, and trembling as if he had swallowed a condensed earthquake.

Peebles was afraid to answer, because he wasn't sure about that speech. He knew he had to keep his grip on it while he had it there, or it would slip away from him quicker than an oiled eel through an augur hole. So he blurted right out:

"Mr. Merriweather, sir: Perhaps it may not be unknown to you, sir, that during an extended period of some five years, I have been busily engaged in the prosecution of a commercial enterprise—"

"Is that so, and keepin' it secret all the time, while I thought you was tendin' store. Well, by George, you're one of 'em, now, ain't you?"

Peebles had to begin all over again, to get the run of it.

"Mr. Merriweather, sir: Perhaps it may not be unknown to you that during an extended period of some five years, I have been engaged in the prosecution of a commercial enterprise, with a determination to procure a sufficient maintenance—"

"Sit down, Pee b, and help yourself to beer. Don't stand there holding your hat like a blind beggar with the paralysis. What's the matter with you, any way? I never seen you behave yourself so in all my born days."

Peebles was knocked out again, and had to wander back and take a fresh start.

"Mr. Merriweather, sir: It may not be unknown to you that during an extended period of some five years, I have been engaged in the prosecution of a commercial enterprise, with the determination to procure a sufficient maintenance—"

"A which-ance?" asked old Merriweather; but Peebles held on to the last word as if it was his only chance, and went on:

"In the hope that some day I might enter wedlock, and bestow my earthly possessions upon one whom I could call my own, I have been a lonely man, sir, and have felt that it is not good for man to be alone; therefore—"

"Neither is it, Peebles: and I'm all-fired glad you dropped in. How's the old man?"

"Mr. Merriweather, sir," said Peebles, in despairing confusion, raising his voice to a yell, "it may not be unknown to you that, during an extended period of a lonely man, I have been engaged to enter wedlock, and bestow all my commercial enterprise on one whom I could procure a determination to be good for a sufficient possessions—no, I mean—that is—that Mr. Merriweather, sir, it may not be unknown—"

"And then again it may. Look here, Peebles, you'd better lay down and take something warm: you ain't well!"

Peebles, sweating like a four-year-old colt, went in again:

"Mr. Merriweather, sir: It may not be lonely for you to prosecute me whom you can call a friend, for commercial maintenance, but—but—oh, dang it—Mr. Merriweather; sir—it—"

"Oh, Peebles, you talk as wildly as a jackass. I never see a more first-class idiot in the whole course of my life.—What's the matter with you, anyhow?"

"Mr. Merriweather, sir," said Peebles, in an agony of bewilderment, "It may not be unknown that you prosecuted a lonely man who is not good for a commercial period of wedlock for some five years—but"

"See here, Mr. Peebles, you're drunk, and if you can't behave better than that you'd better leave. If you don't I'll chuck you out, or I'm a Dutchman."

"Mr. Merriweather, sir," said Peebles, frantic with despair, "it may not be unknown to you that my earthly possessions are engaged to enter wedlock five years with a sufficiently lonely man who is not good for a commercial maintenance"—

"The bloody deuce he isn't. Now you just git up and git, old hoss, or I'll knock what little brains out of you you've got left."

With that old Merriweather took Peebles by the shirt collar and the part of his pants that wears out first if he sits down much, and shot him into the street as if he had just run against a locomotive going at the rate of forty miles an hour.

Before old Merriweather had a chance to shut the front door Peebles collected his legs and one thing or another that were lying around on the pavement, and arranged himself in a vertical position, and yelled out:

"Mr. Merriweather, sir: It may not be unknown to you—" which made the old man so wretched mad that he went out and set a bull terrier on Peebles before he had a chance to lift a brogan, and there was a scientific dog fight, with odds in favor of the dog, until they got to the fence, and even then Peebles would have carried bull-terrier home, stripped like a clamp on to his leg, if it hadn't been that the meat was too tender, and the dog, feeling certain that something or other must eventually give way, held on until he got his chop off of Peebles' calf, and Peebles went home half a pound lighter, while Merriweather asserts, to this day, that they had to draw all the dog's teeth to get the flesh out of his mouth, "for he had an awful holt for such a small animal."

Of course Merriweather's daughter heard about it, and she was so mad that she never gave the old man any peace until he went around the next day to see Peebles about it. Peebles looked pale as a ghost from loss of blood and beef, and he had a whole piece of muslin wrapped around his off leg. Merriweather said:

"Peeb, I'm sorry about that muss last night, but if you didn't bebave like a raving maniac, I'm a loafer. I never see such a deliberate ass since I was born. What's the meaning of it, anyway?"

"I was only trying to ask you to let me marry your daughter," groaned Peebles.

"Great—what? You didn't mean to, mean to say—well, I hope I may be shot. Well, if you ain't a regular old wooden-headed idiot—I thought your mind was wandering. Why didn't you say it right out? Why of course you can have her. I am glad to get rid of her. Take her, my boy; go it, go it, and I'll throw a lot of first class blessings into the bargain."

And Peebles looked ruefully at his defective leg and wished he had not been such a fool, but he went out and married the girl, and lived happily with her for about two months, and, at the end of that time, he told a confidential friend that he would willingly take more trouble and undergo a million more dog bites to get rid of her.