Chapter 14
14. Of But Gentleman Mary Burnett's by Anita Luse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Jen Broda. Chapter 14. Well, Charlie Breen's trip around the world turned out to be quite an education, because that was where he acquired all the knowledge he has learned about sake and mezcal and vodka and okwapé. But finally the drinks of all the
nations began to tell on him in a hospital at Shanghai. Even in the midst of delirium treatments at China, where other patients would be seen peculiar animals, Charlie always seemed to be seen Dorothy, and the courier had only bad news to cable Charlie's mother. But finally, Charlie and his courier arrived at San Francisco at last, and Mrs. Breen went out to California to meet them, hoping against hope that Charlie was cured. I mean, she did not mind the delirium
treatments so much, but what she really meant was Dorothy. Because after all, she was a mother with a mother's love, and if her only son married the girl of his choice, he might get left out of the social register. Well, when Mrs. Breen heard the truth from the courier, she reached the depths of despondency, for Dorothy was back in New York and free to marry anyone. So that night, she sat up late in her suite at the St. Francis Hotel and got Mr. Abels in New York on the
telephone and told him to do something definite to Dorothy before Charlie arrived at New York. Well, Mr. Abels called in another one of his silent legal assistants, who was more versed in the rougher kind of law, and put the case into his hands. So this assistant thought the best thing to do would be to have someone put some kind of illegal dope in Dorothy's handbag, and have the police arrest Dorothy for being in its possession. And that would prove to Charlie Breen what kind of
a girl he had picked out to be the mother of his children. So an assistant lady detective put it in Dorothy's handbag in the ladies' room at the Club Dover, and it all worked out just as they had planned. Well, the police took Dorothy to the station, where she had to mingle with common girls of the sidewalks, and the girl next to Dorothy was colored. Well, her name was Lulu, and she seemed to want to be quite friendly, so she said to Dorothy, Hello, honey. So Dorothy said, Hello.
And then Lulu said, What'd they get you for? Well, Dorothy was trying to fight back the tears, but she wanted to be polite, and she did not like to tell Lulu that she was innocent, because Lulu looked quite guilty. So Dorothy said, Same thing as you, I guess. So Lulu spoke up and said, Then I spec they pick you up for soliciting. So then Lulu became quite thoughtful, and after she had thought quite a while, she said to Dorothy, What they trying to do? Stop that thing? I mean,
Lulu seemed to think that the police had undertaken quite a large job. Well, I have always said, in play, that someday Dorothy would end up in a jail, but when she finally did, I could hardly believe my ears. I mean, it is really quite a shock for a society matron who is a mother to be paged at four o'clock in the morning at the Club Lido and told that her best friend is in the station. So Henry and I went right over to see her, but by the time we arrived, there was hardly a policeman
in the whole station whose heart was in his work, because Dorothy is the kind of a girl who is always popular with the police, and every other criminal in the whole station was being grossly neglected for Dorothy. Well, they brought Dorothy into a small private office for us to see, and the tears were streaming down her face, but at the same time she was trying to be brave, with the smiles coming through in a way that was practically irresistible to the authorities.
And I will never, never forget how Dorothy looked up at me through her tears and said, Lorelai, I suppose we couldn't expect to keep out of here forever. Well, the first thing Henry did was to send for Mr. Dudley Field Malone, who is one of the most famous lawyers on the side of the oppressed. So he came down to the station, and when he heard Dorothy's troubles, his blood boiled over, for he loves nothing better than
prosecuting the wealthy kind of people who think that they can make up their own laws as they go along. And after he got through putting two and two together, he figured out that the Breen family had done enough to Dorothy to put them all in jail for 190 years without clemency. So Mr. Malone went to the Breen family, and when he got through with them, they not only released Dorothy from jail, but they settled a sum of $500 a month damages on her for the rest
of her natural life. Well, the very next day, Charlie arrived home from his travels, and the meeting that took place between Charlie Breen and Dorothy was one of the most pathetic things that has ever occurred in the colony restaurant. For while Henry and Dorothy and I were sitting there eating delicious soup, we happened to look up, and there was Charlie Breen, and it was really quite a shock to see what foreign travels and oriental drinks, far from
the girl of his choice, had done to his personal appearance. Well, he came over to the table shaking quite a lot, and he was so upset at seeing Dorothy at last that he practically broke down. And it always makes me feel so sentimental to watch a gentleman break down that I almost believe my eyes became moist. But all Dorothy said was, Hello, Charlie, you look awful, for Dorothy has never learned how to be complimentary. Well, Charlie sat down,
and we all had dinner, and when he heard the case that his family had trumpeted up against Dorothy, he became quite an ungrateful son. For the very next day, he called the whole Breen family together and told them quite a few plain truths and got himself disinherited. Well, then Charlie had to go to Dorothy and tell her that he did not have a penny in the world, and for the first time in Charlie's whole career, he began to intrigue her interest. So I had quite a little talk with
Charlie and told him to go even further and ask Dorothy to lend him some money. So he borrowed $500 from Dorothy to get a new start in life, selling automobiles, and Dorothy began to sit up and take notice. Well, it turned out that going to work seemed to make Charlie decide to stop drinking. And when he stopped drinking, he stopped feeling so humble, because then he did not have anything to apologize for. And on the contrary, he started in to become quite a bore, telling
everybody else about the vileness of the bad habit of drinking in comparison with he himself, who never touched it. And when Charlie began to give himself recommendations, he really gave Dorothy quite a little thrill. But what really capped the climax was that instead of always saying something complimentary to Dorothy like, oh, you wonderful girl, for instance, Charlie took to looking Dorothy over in his sober senses, and seeing her as she really was,
and making remarks like, go wash your face, you've got on too much makeup. And Dorothy fell in love. Well, I told Dorothy that, under the circumstances, the ceremony ought to be in some justice of the pieces back office, where the absence of the bridegroom's family could be overlooked by gossip. But strange to say, Dorothy began to get very, very refined and full of etiquette, and wanted to have a large-size social ceremony in a church. And it finally came out that she had wired for
her father to come, clear from modesto, and give her away for the event. Well, I told Dorothy that she was taking a very great risk to have a father give away a bride, whose only public training in etiquette had been jumping off roofs at street fairs. And I began to become quite worried. But nothing could stop Dorothy, and she went right on and ordered steel engraved invitations from Cartier's, and sent them out to not only everybody in the social register, but to all her
personal girlfriends in the follies besides. Well, all of Dorothy's friends accepted, and so did all of the younger society set of the social register, but the older set all refused. I mean, with one exception, and that was old Lady Vandervent, who always looked on the bright side. And she had not learned what kind of a girl Charlie was marrying, because she only reads the Christian Science Monitor and does not know all the evil that is going on in the world.
Well, the day before the ceremony, Dorothy and I went down to the Grand Central Station to meet Dorothy's father. And he got off of the trains with four valises, that it took two red caps apiece to lift off the sidewalk, on account of the heavy Pacific gravity of the liquor that was practically all they contained. And it seems he had made it with his own hands, and the reason he brought it to New York was not so much that he cared whose liquor he drank,
as it was personal pride in his own achievement. But I told Dorothy that that was the kind of an achievement that adds very little to a large religious ceremony in a church. But the way it turned out, sending for Mr. Shaw was really quite a happy thought, because he had had quite a lot of experience handing girls down off of platforms. So when he gave Dorothy away, he did it with the most graceful gesture that I have ever seen inside of a church.
Well, after the ceremony came the wedding reception at my salon, and I really must pay quite a few compliments to the way a few of us behaved. I mean, all of the girls from the follies were overcome by the sanctity of the occasion, and even Mr. Shaw, who drank quite a lot, only became more and more gallant. But I cannot say so much for the society set. I mean, I tried quite hard to lead them a good example, by refusing champagne, but they started
in to drink so heavily that finally Mrs. Vandervent came to me and said that she could not remain any longer without seeming to give them her personal sanction. But she apologized very much for the way her social-born friends were acting, and she said that it was girls like Dorothy and I who could be impressed by such an occasion that would have to carry on the fabric of society. And then she said that she wanted nobody but that delightful Mr. Shaw
to be her escort home. Well, I told Dorothy to give her father some kind of a warning against all of his gallantry, so Dorothy got him off in one corner and said, Pop, if you make a pass at old lady Vandervent on the way home, you must take the first train out of New York society in the morning. But the next day, Mrs. Vandervent's footman told my chauffeur and he told my maid that Dorothy's father did make a pass at Mrs. Vandervent in the cabriolet,
but she enjoyed it. So everything turned out for the best after all, and the last I saw of Dorothy, Charlie was ordering her around on the train to Atlantic City in his sober state, and Dorothy was more refined than I have ever seen her before, with even a trace of dignity. And it has turned out that the old lady Vandervent and I have become almost inseparable because we have practically the same ideals about everything. So I really believe that I shall be
the next one to get into the social register because the way they are having to put society people out of it, somebody or other has got to take their place and it will probably be me. And when I get in, I'm going to try to get Dorothy in too because we have been in almost everything else together. And if I do manage to get Dorothy into the social register, I shall really have to begin to believe that the world is quite a good place to live in, even in the case of a girl like
Dorothy. The End. End of chapter 14. End of But Gentlemen Mary Burnett's by Anita Luz.
