Two Fair Detectives

What do you think young men talk about when they sit at open windows smoking on summer evenings? Do you suppose it is of love? Indeed I suspect it is of money; or, if not of money, then at least of something that either makes money or spends it.

Cleve Sullivan has been spending his for four years in Europe, and he has just been telling his friend, John Selden how he spent it. John has spent his in New York—he is inclined to think just as probably. Both stories conclude in the same way.

“I have not a thousand dollars left, John.”

“Nor I, Cleave.”

“I thought your cousin died two years ago. Surely you have not spent all the old gentleman’s money already?”

“I only got twenty thousand dollars; I owed half of it.”

“Only twenty thousand! What did he do with it?”

“Gave it to his wife. He married a beauty about a year after you went away, died in a few months afterward, and left her his whole fortune. I had no claim on him. He educated me, gave me a profession and twenty thousand dollars. That was very well; he was only my mother’s cousin.”

“And the widow—where is she?”

“Living at his country seat. I have never seen her. She was one of the St. Maurs of Maryland.”

“Good family, and all beauties. Why don’t you marry the widow?”

“Why, I never thought of such a thing.”

“You can’t think of anything better. Write her a little note at once; say that you and I will soon be in her neighborhood, and that gratitude to your cousin, and all that kind of thing—then beg leave to call and pay your respects, etc., etc.”

John demurred a good deal to the plan, but Cleave was masterful, and the note was written, Cleave himself putting it in the post-office.

That was on Monday night. On Wednesday morning the Widow Clare found it with a dozen others upon her breakfast table. She was a dainty, high-bred little lady, with… Read More