Our Mr. Wrenn The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man

e care if he spent all he had? A guy, he admonished himself, just had to have coin when he was goin' with a girl like Miss Istra. At least seven times he darted up from the door-step, where he

o go away. Istra might co

as a truck-driver hates a motorman, so did he hate a pudgy woman across the street who peeped out from a second-story window and watched him with cynical interest. He finally could endure no longer the

of course," he explained to himself, "you hadn't oughta love a person without you expected to marry them; you oughtn't never even touch her hand." Yet he did want to touch hers. He suddenly threw his chin back, high and firm, i

le standing on the walk, and came

g before Rothsey Hall

-GLOR

ATION ARMY J

DJUTANT CRABBENT

m and well set up, his red-ribboned Salvation Army cap

d into the hall. Bill Wr

n's imagination was not for a second drawn to Africa, nor did he even glance at the sun-bonneted Salvationist women packed in t

s over Istra-at the moment he quite called

by was staring at hi

waiter. He was positively courtly to his fork. For he was just reformed. He was going to "steer clear" of ma

their wine and cigarettes, with their devil's calling-cards and their jewels, with their hell-lighted talk of the sacrilegious follies of socialism and art and horse-racing, O my brothers, it was all

moral reflections brought the picture of Istra the more clearly before him-the persuasive warmth of her perfect fingers; the curve

ng to the upper deck of a bus he was trying to invent an excuse for seeing her.... Of course one couldn't "go

d purchased a Blackwood's and a Nineteenth Century. Morton h

then cut the leaves and ruffled the margins to make the magazines look dog-eared with much reading; not because he

t he wondered if he really cared to see her at a

ast himself upon his bed. He was sure of nothing but the fact that he was unhappy. He consid

y hero as easily as they did make him confusedly sorry for himself. That he wasn't very much of a cad or anything of a hero is a detail, an accident resulting

brushed his thinning hair so nervously that he had to try three times for a straight parti

to change his tie to a navy-blue bow which made him appear younger. He was feeling rather

brown teeth, always seen in his perpetual grin, but a godlike Grecian nose, a high forehead, and bristly yellow hair. The

o with a great gold-mounted medallion pinned at her br

ok of verses, but she glowed at Mr. Wrenn as though he were her most f

emed to have heard her call him "Mouse." Yes, but what did Mouse mean? It wasn't h

one of our best littl

om America-Californ

Wr

aid both men in the s

like to look at these magazines. Just droppe

only fighting-he's going pretty soon. We knew each other at

tle poet, "I hope you'll back

tand for `Izzy' any more! I should think that even you would be able to ou

d: "Miss Nash says that the best European thought, personally gathered in the best salons, shows

: "Mr. Wrenn absolutely agrees with me. By the way, he's doing a

ti-Stirner!" cried Carson Haggerty, kicking out each

ked knees. Always, in the hundreds of times he went over the scene in that room afterward, he remembered how cool and smooth the magazine covers felt to the palms of his flattened hands. For he as

himself made him admire the manner in which Carson tossed about long creepy-sounding words, like a bush-ape playing with scarle

, till Haggerty intentionally called her Izzy again, when she sat up and remarked to Mr. Wrenn: "Oh, don't go

e had told her about some article. Article. Perhaps it was a Souvenir Company novelty article. Great idea! Perhaps she wanted to design a motto for them. He decidedl

tten that Mr. Wrenn was alive. She was scowling at a book on the bed as though it had said things to her. So he sat quiet and

at.... It was good of you to stay and help me get rid of him.... I'm getting-I'm sorry I'm so dull to-night. I suppose I'll get sent off to bed right n

d. "Why, it's all right.... What was it about some novelt

tic

t you wanted t

my having been a naive kiddy, hungry for friendship, once. And now, good n-. Oh, Mouse, he s

sh rules by which he had edged a shy polite way through life. He fearfully reached out his hands toward her shoulders in turn, but his arms were shorter than hers, and his hands reste

demanded; "aren

he qu

sweet,"

vously, and deploring: "I shouldn't have done that! I shouldn't! Forgive me!" Plaintively, like a child: "Ist

aid "Good night, Istra," and smiled in a lively way and walked out. He got out the smile by wrenching his nerves, for which he paid in agony as he knelt by his bed, acknowledging that Is

ays. Twice, seeing a sliver of light under her door as he came up the darkened stairs, h

she would like his carrying. And it cost only two-and-six. Hastily, before he changed his mind, he rushed in and slammed down his money. It was a very beautiful stick indeed, and of a modesty to commend itself to Istra, just a plain straight stic

e dusk, there was a knock. It was Istra. She stood at his door, smart and inco

abruptly. "I wan

Johns' flat. I've

. I want to tal

of co

ry,

cked his new walking-stick under his arm without d

iet streets and squares of Bloomsbury to Grea

carce a wo

ho with an inhibition and a varietistic sex instinct ag

ts boldly with his stick and delicately touched h

and then you can take me out and buy me a Rhine wine

le in the room just beyond, divided off from the living-room by a burlap curtain to which were pinned suffrage buttons and medallions. This last he remembered afterward, thinking over the room, for the medals' glittering points of light relieved his eyes from the intolerable glances of the people as he was hastily introduced to them. H

ound a match. She had much of the ant's brownness and slimness, too. Her pale hair was always falling from under her fillet of worn black velvet (with the dingy under side of the velvet showing

e? We must do something. I tell you the conditions are

al branches of education of female infants, water rates

rightness was so demanding, so rest

of twenty, who, Istra told Mr. Wrenn, studied Greek archaeology at the Museum. No one knew why she studied it. She seemed peacefully ignorant of everything but her kissable lips

eck-cloth, who was Puritanically, ethically, gloomily, religiously atheistic. Items in the room were a young man who

"we" tear down the state; no, not by these was Our Mr. Wrenn of the Souvenir Company shocked, but by his own fascinated interest in t

ls, to confuse the radica

ary to a point of madness, you shall find one who calls you reactionary. The scorners came in together-Moe Tchatzsky, the syn

ympia's hospitable shrieks after them of "Oh stay! It's o

dark. It was gratefully quiet. She snatched u

very night they settle all the fate of all the nations, always the same way. I don't suppo

ou. They don't savvy like you do. I mean it! But I was awful int'rested in what that Miss Johns said about kids in school getting c

t. Can't you see your cattle-boat experience is realer than any of the t

never done

ter of you. I've got to create something. Oh, those people! If you just knew them! That fool Mary Stettinius is mad about that Tchatzsky person, and her husb

know-I do

riticize your first specimens of radicals any more. They are trying to do something, anyway." Then s

exclaimed: "Mouse, I am so sick of everything. I want to get out, away, anywhere, and do s

on a picnic to

and several kinds of cake?... I'm afraid the Bois

upple strong throat arched with the passion of hating boredom, she

t is your adventure-your formula for it?... Let's see; you take common r

more than o

d so on, up in Suffolk; but they have got some beautiful cottages, and they're more Celt than Dublin.... Start right now; take a train to Chelmsford, say, and tramp all night. Take a

s sure she was mad.

't let he

m in revulsion, her hands clenched.

t you want

e her, angry, d

Can't you see how I feel about you? Why, I'd rather do this than anything I ever heard of

I don't regard it as exactly wicked t

se, Istra, don't look at me

s arm, sat down on the railing, a

Yes, I do believe you want to take care of

ou rather wait

ome, so that I'll have some one to quarrel with.... I hate the smugness of London, especially the sm

stra rang for the landlady. His knees grew sick and old and quavery as he heard the landlady's voice loud

gs, listened in a frightened way to Istra's blandly superior statement: "Mr. Wrenn and I have been invi

off tog

w any one in my room. And I may send for my things from out of town. Be

miss

u realize that your `

't go to be

all.... Hurry

tired woman, but of a tennis-and-dancing-mad girl: "We're off! Just ta

ed into

uished clothes he was wearing, so he put on a cap, and hoped she wouldn't notice. She didn't. She came knoc

ford in half an hour, my time-table