Marge

“ Then, one night, we had the identical fight that we had watched two years earlier, on our first time trip. Marge, as usual, was crying hysterically about not having long to live and I was shouting at her about wishing herself into the grave. ”

“ Then an uneducated policeman came up to me and asked me to pass along, please, adding that Mr. Lloyd George was not in London. So, simply replying “All right, face,” I passalongpleased.
However, in spite of all that bound me so closely to the great political world, I could not help feeling the claims of literature. I am sensitive to every claim. It is the claim of history, for example, that compels me to write my autobiography. I seem to see all around me a thousand human arts and activities crying for my help and interest. They seem to say “Marge, Marge, more Marge!” ”

“ Tramlay.
“My dear wife,” said Tramlay, tenderly, “I know Marge has some good qualities, but I beg you to remember that by the time our daughter ought to be in the very prime of her beauty and spirits, unless her health fails, Marge will be nearly seventy years old. I can’t bear the thought of our darling being doomed to be nurse to an old man just when she will be most fit for the companionship and sympathy of a husband. ”

“ I should have known Marge's traps by then.
Marge exploded. I didn't get any supper, and she was still going strong at midnight. I tried to argue, but when Marge got going, there was no stopping her. I had my ultimatum, as far as Jeree was concerned.
Harry Folsom administered the coup de grace at coffee next morning. "What you need is an Ego Prime," he said with a grin. "Solve all your problems. I hear they work like a charm." ”

“ However, the emotions expressed were plain enough.
"You aren't going to die, Marge," my future self was yelling at her. "Try and get that through your damned thick stupid skull!"
"I am! I am!" she was screaming back at me. "You know I'm going to die. You want to get rid of me. Our marriage has been one long fight from the start."
"Don't talk such damned rot," my future self hollered back at her. "There's probably a perfectly good explanation for it all and you're too ignorant to see it!"
"The only explanation is that I'm going to die," future Marge insisted. ”

“ When she wrote that last instalment in “The Sunday Times,” the power of criticism had gone to have the valves ground in.
I will now ask your kind attention for my estimate of me, Marge Askinforit, by myself.
There is just one quality which I claim to have in an even greater degree than my prototype. She is unlike real life—no woman was ever like what any woman supposes herself to be—but I am far more unlike real life. I have more inconsistency, more self-contradiction, more anachronism, more impossibility. ”

“ Marge: Anything—but temporary parlour-maid is my strong suit.
Chummie: And what’s your game?
Marge: I’m sick of patronizing politicians and want to patronize a poet. When all’s said and done, Inmemorison is a proper certificated poet. Besides, I want to put something by for my rainy autobiography.
Chummie: Oh, well. I’ll try and lay a pipe for it. May come off or may not.
Chummie managed the thing to perfection. My sister Casey wrote me one of the best testimonials I have ever had, and by Christmas I was safely installed for a week. ”

“ That seemed to make my future self even madder. "You know I wouldn't touch one of those things even to save my life. I mean it, too! Besides, if you do die, it'll be your own fault. You'll have believed yourself to death! You think you're going to die and now you won't be happy until you are dead."
Future Marge began to sob hysterically and my Marge, who had been right beside me, suddenly seemed to grow a little more remote. ”

“ If there had been such transactions, perhaps a share of the business was to pay for them. Inquiries of his banking-acquaintances did not make the matter clearer to Marge; so he resolved to devote himself to the new clerk, as he could safely do in his capacity of co-director of the Improvement Company. The young man had considerable self-possession, Marge admitted to himself; but what would it avail against the fine methods of a man of twice his years, all spent among men who considered it legitimate business to pry into the business-affairs of others? ”

“ That Marge also was jealous was inevitable. Highly as he valued himself, he knew womankind well enough to imagine that a handsome young fellow just past his majority might be more gratifying to the eye, at least, than a man who had reached—well, who had not mentioned his age since he passed his thirty-fifth birthday. He had in his favor all the prestige of a good record in society, of large acquaintance and aristocratic extraction, but he could not blind himself to the fact that the young women who were most estimable did not greet him as effusively and confidentially as they did Phil. ”

“ Marge,” said Miss Dinon, with a frank smile and an outstretched hand.{254}
Marge raised his hat, bowed, and replied,—
“The hand of the laboring-man is sometimes best shaken in spirit. I assure you, though, I appreciate the compliment.”
“Then don’t deny me the honor,” said Miss Dinon. “It’s a positive pleasure to see a man doing something manly. It is my misfortune that I see men only in the city, you know, and doing nothing.”
Her hand was still extended, so Marge took it, again raising his hat. Margie turned away ”

“ Shoals of other kids were converging upon the portals of Drury; kids in taxis, kids in growlers, kids on foot. It was 1:28, and all were frightfully anxious to be in their places by the time the curtain—the real, not the fireproof curtain—went up. Timothy and Alice Clara were inclined to hustle round a bit, but Marge had such implicit faith in Uncle Phil that to her mind hustling was not called for and was therefore unladylike. ”

“ Toffee ducked quickly behind Marc. "You rip off this dress," she giggled, "and you'll see a whale of a lot more than how smart I am."
That one stopped Marge cold. A naked redhead was bound to create more of a disturbance in Pete's life than just a fresh one dressed in lace. She was forced to content herself with only a murderous glare, but she put her all into it.
Marc, who had been watching these developments with an air of detached amusement, stepped forward, removing Toffee's protection. "You're all upset," he said to Marge, lowering the jug from his shoulder. "Have some squeezin's." ”

“ What, asked Phil of himself, was the reason that such a man, who did not seem much interested in anything, should have plenty of money and nothing to do, when a certain other person, who could keenly enjoy, and, he believed, honestly improve, all of Marge’s privileges, should have been doomed to spend his life in hard endeavor to wrest the plainest food from the jealous earth and threatening sea, and have but a chance glimpse of the Paradise that the rich were enjoying,—a glimpse which probably would make his entire after-life wretched. ”

“ My possessions, Margery, the estate which is mine own—No man can guess what a well-governed trading-house may earn in half a century.—Yes, I tell you, Margery, I can hold out and wait. Two, or at most three months; they will soon slip away. The older we grow and the duller is life, the swifter do the days fly. ”

“ Marge Prime makes Jeree and Sybil and Dorothy and Dawn and Jane and Ruby all look pretty sad by comparison.
She cooks like a dream and she always brings me my pipe and slippers. As they say, there's nothing a man likes more than to be appreciated. ”

“ As I mentioned before, Marge was always easy to look at. That night, she was practically ravishing.
"What are you doing to her?" I asked George Prime later, out in the workshop.
"Why, nothing," said George Prime, looking innocent. He couldn't fool me with his look, though, because it was exactly the look I use when I'm guilty and pretending to be innocent.
"There must be something."
George Prime shrugged. "Any woman will warm up if you spend enough time telling her all the things she wants to hear and pay all the attention to her that she wants paid to her. That's elemental psychology. ”

“ Alfred?
Birsch: Yes, my son.
Marge: But I have never even seen him.
Birsch: And when you have you’ll probably [Pg 53] wish you hadn’t. But don’t let that prejudice you. It’s the inside of the head that counts. That boy’s got a perfect genius for cottage property and real tact with it. Only last week he raised an old woman’s rent a shilling a week, and when he left she gave him a rosebud and said she’d pray for him. It takes some doing—a thing like that. Now, I want a public career for that boy, and if he marries you he can’t miss it. Do you know what Mr. Bunting said to me about you? ”

“ Nothing, said Simon, but to walk about with you, sweet wife, as is common the day after marriage. No, no, said Margery, this must not, nor shall not be. It is very well known I have brought you a considerable fortune; forty shillings in money and a good milk cow, four fat wedders, with half a dozen ewes and lambs, likewise geese, hens, and turkeys; also a sow and pigs, with other moveables, worth more than any of your crook-backed generation is able to give you. And do you think you shall lead as lewd a life now as you did before you was married; but if you do, then say my name is not Margery. ”

“ Tramlay, retracing her thoughts, “Mr. Marge doesn’t look the least bit old: he is not the kind of man to grow old. I can’t see that he appears a day older than he did years ago.”
“Bless your sentimental heart!” said the merchant. “He doesn’t, eh? ”

“ Occasionally a lady of rank would ride past in her litter, drawn by horses whose trappings swept the ground; or a knight, followed by a crowd of retainers, would prance by on his high-mettled charger. Margery spent the happiest day which she had passed since her marriage, in wandering about London, and satisfying her girlish curiosity concerning every place of which she had ever heard. Lord Marnell frowned when Margery confessed, on her return, that she had been out to see London. ”

“ In a voice high and clear the old cashier, whom they had known and revered for years, told his story in a simple, straightforward way, yet quivering with excitement, drawing his terror-stricken daughter Margery into the shelter of his strong arms as he spoke.
"I am Margery's father—her only protector," he said, in conclusion. "Is there a man among you with a father's heart beating in his bosom who would not have done as I have done to the villain who dared to thus insult his child. ”

“ A light heart soon will bring to the top again what ruth, at this hour, is bearing to the deeps. Of what use is waiting? Am I then the first Junker who has made love to a sweet maid of low birth, only to forget her for a new lady love?
"Sooth to say, Margery, my confessor, to whom—albeit with bitter pains— I am laying open every fold of my heart—yes, Margery, if Ann's cradle had been graced with a coat of arms matters would be otherwise. ”

“ I have made choice and can never turn back. Long life to every pleasure, call it by what name you will! You have a gleeful, rich, and magnificent brother, little Margery; and albeit the simple lad of old, who chose to wife the daughter of a poor clerk, may have been dearer to you—as he was to my own heart—yet love him still! Of his love you are ever sure; remember him in your prayers; and as for that you have to say to Ann, say it in such wise that she shall not take it over much to heart. ”

“ Margery lives at Castle Gleneesh. When I return home, the sight which first meets my eyes as the hall door opens is old Margery in her black satin apron, lawn kerchief, and lavender ribbons. I always feel seven then, and I always hug her. You, Miss Champion, don't like me when I feel seven; but Margery does. Now, this is what I want you to realise. When I bring a bride to Gleneesh and present her to Margery, the kind old eyes will try to see nothing but good; the faithful old heart will yearn to love and serve. ”

“ Margery entered the kitchen with a noiseless step, and making a low courtesy to her mother, said, in a remarkably clear, silvery voice, “It pleased you to send for me, good mother.”
“Yea, lass; give a hand to the blanch-porre, for Al’ce knows no more than my shoe; and then see to the grewall, whilst I scrape these almonds for the almond butter.” ”

“ Margery, who had looked for the great man from London with girlish curiosity, suddenly felt an unconquerable and causeless dislike to him swell up in her heart, a something which she could neither define nor account for, that made her wish to avoid sitting near him, and turn her eyes away whenever his were directed towards her. ”

“ Frank’s hand released his struggling victim. Gentleness and love overspread his features, dispelling their villainy. To Magnolia’s staring and open-mouthed amazement he made a gesture of abnegation. “Well, Marge, I ain’t got nothin’ more to say if you and the parson want to get married.” After which astounding utterance he slunk rapidly off, leaving the field to what was perhaps the most abject huddle of heroism that every graced a show-boat stage. ”

“ Nobody ever heard anything but good of Phil Hayn, either here or anywhere else, and if he loves me I’m proud of it, and I’m going to love him back all I like, even if I have to break my heart afterward. He shan’t know how I feel, you may rest assured of that. But oh, Margie, it’s just too dreadful. Mamma has picked out Mr. Marge for me,—who could love such a stick?—and she’ll be perfectly crazy if I marry any one else, unless perhaps it’s some one with a great deal more money. I wonder if ever a poor girl was in such a perfectly horrible position? ”