Then Gonsalvo bursts forth again, “Imogene!  Oh!  Imogene!  Will you be mine and I will be thine without money and without the price.”

Gonsalvo pauses to let this idea get noised about a little.

Then he goes on, “Be mine, Imogene!  You will be minus the money while I will have the price!”

Gonsalvo trembles with the passion which is consuming his pocketbook, and then Imogene turns languidly from a right angle triangle into more of a straight front, and hands Gonsalvo a bitter look of scorn.

Then Gonsalvo grabs his revolver and, aiming it at her marble brow, exclaims, “Marry me this minute or I will shoot you in the top-knot, because I love you.”

Then papa rushes into the room and Gonsalvo politely requests the old gentleman to hold two or three bullets for him for a few moments.

Gonsalvo then bites deeply into a bottle of carbolic acid and just as the Coroner climbs into the house the pictures of the modern lover and loveress appear in the newspapers, and fashionable Society receives a jolt.

This is the new and up-to-date way of making love.

However, I think the old style of courting is the best, because you can generally stop a jag before it gets to the undertaker.

What do you think?

JOHN HENRY ON SUMMER RESORTS

Me for that summer resort gag—­Oh! fine!

I fell for a Saratoga set-back this summer but never no more for mine.

At night I used to sit up with the rest of the social push and drink highballs to make me sick, so I could drink Saratoga water in the morning to make me well.

That’s what is called reciprocity, because it works both ways against the middle.

Isn’t it the limit the way people from all over the country will rush to these fashionable summer resorts with wide open pocketbooks and with their bank accounts frothing at the mouth!

The most popular fad at every summer resort I’ve ever climbed into is to watch the landlord reaching out for the coin.

Husbands make bets with their wives whether the landlord of the hotel will get all their money in an hour or an hour and a half.

Both husband and wife loose; because the landlord generally gets it in ten minutes.

At some of the hotel diningrooms it costs six dollars to peep in, eight dollars to walk in, and fifteen dollars to get near enough to a waiter to talk soup.

You can see lots of swell guys in the dining-rooms who are now using a fork in public for the first time.

This reminds me of an experience I had in a certain summer resort dining-room not long ago.

At a table near me sat Ike Gooseheimer.

Ike is a self-made man and he made a quick job of it.

Ike was eating with his knife and doing it so recklessly that I felt like yelling for the sticking plaster.