She, too, had become a
Wilkinsite, and would have nothing to do with any of us. She declined to
attend the Beldens's musicale with me, and went bicycling with the
iceberg. She told Robinson she hated lectures, and went to a
stereopticon show with the train-wrecker. All the other men met with a
similar rebuff, and at the last meeting of the Chafing Dish Club she
capped the climax by refusing my lobster a la Newburg and Harry's
oysters poulet, to have a second helping to the sole-leather welsh
rarebit which Wilkins had constructed; Wilkins, a rank outsider, who had
been asked to come to the meeting by every blessed girl in the club,
although heretofore he had not been considered as a possible member, and
in fact had been black-balled by the girls themselves! And when it came
time for the girls to go home, instead of each one being escorted by a
single male member, Wilkins corralled the whole lot of them in a huge
omnibus which he had hired, and drove off with them, leaving us
disconsolate. He smiled so broadly you could see his teeth in the dark.
This, as I have said, capped the climax.
"That settles it," said Burnham. "I'm going to New York for a rest.
These Dumfries Corners girls needn't think they're the only women in the
world. There are others."
"I'm going to stay and stick it out," said I. "I've got my sister left.
She'll never succumb to the Wilkins influence." But alas! I leaned upon
a broken reed.
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