There was very nearly no wedding at all. Bella came to see me in a

frenzy the next morning and threw Jim and his two-hundred odd pounds in

my face, and although I explained it all over and over, she never quite

forgave me. That was what made it so hard later--the situation would

have been bad enough without that complication.

They went abroad on their wedding journey, and stayed several months.

And when Jim came back he was fatter than ever. Everybody noticed it.

Bella had a gymnasium fitted up in a corner of the studio, but he would

not use it. He smoked a pipe and painted all day, and drank beer and

WOULD eat starches or whatever it is that is fattening. But he adored

Bella, and he was madly jealous of her. At dinners he used to glare at

the man who took her in, although it did not make him thin. Bella was

flirting, too, and by the time they had been married a year, people

hitched their chairs together and dropped their voices when they were

mentioned.

Well, on the anniversary of the day Bella left him--oh yes, she left him

finally. She was intense enough about some things, and she said it got

on her nerves to have everybody chuckle when they asked for her husband.

They would say, "Hello, Bella! How's Bubbles? Still banting?" And Bella

would try to laugh and say, "He swears his tailor says his waist is

smaller, but if it is he must be growing hollow in the back."

But she got tired of it at last. Well, on the second anniversary of

Bella's departure, Jimmy was feeling pretty glum, and as I say, I am

very fond of Jim. The divorce had just gone through and Bella had taken

her maiden name again and had had an operation for appendicitis. We

heard afterward that they didn't find an appendix, and that the one they

showed her in a glass jar WAS NOT HERS! But if Bella ever suspected, she

didn't say. Whether the appendix was anonymous or not, she got box after

box of flowers that were, and of course every one knew that it was Jim

who sent them.

To go back to the anniversary, I went to Rothberg's to see the

collection of antique furniture--mother was looking for a sideboard

for father's birthday in March--and I met Jimmy there, boring into a

worm-hole in a seventeenth-century bedpost with the end of a match, and

looking his nearest to sad. When he saw me he came over.

"I'm blue today, Kit," he said, after we had shaken hands. "Come and

help me dig bait, and then let's go fishing. If there's a worm in every

hole in that bedpost, we could go into the fish business. It's a good

business."




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