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Literary Lapses
·
Stephen Leacock
64
"I
will
not
dwell
upon
the
happy
days
that
ensued--days
of
gaudy
summer
neckties
and
white
waistcoats,
of
spotless
shirts
and
lofty
collars
worn
but
a
single
day
by
the
fastidious
lover.
Our
happiness
seemed
complete
and
I
asked
no
more
from
fate.
Alas!
it
was
not
destined
to
continue!
When
the
bright
days
of
summer
were
fading
into
autumn,
I
was
grieved
to
notice
an
occasional
quarrel--only
four
shirts
instead
of
seven,
or
the
reappearance
of
the
abandoned
cuffs
and
shirt-fronts.
Reconciliations
followed,
with
tears
of
penitence
upon
the
shoulder
of
the
white
waistcoat,
and
the
seven
shirts
came
back.
But
the
quarrels
grew
more
frequent
and
there
came
at
times
stormy
scenes
of
passionate
emotion
that
left
a
track
of
broken
buttons
down
the
waistcoat.
The
shirts
went
slowly
down
to
three,
then
fell
to
two,
and
the
collars
of
my
unhappy
friend
subsided
to
an
inch
and
three-quarters.
In
vain
I
lavished
my
utmost
care
upon
Fifty-Six.
It
seemed
to
my
tortured
mind
that
the
gloss
upon
his
shirts
and
collars
would
have
melted
a
heart
of
stone.
Alas!
my
every
effort
at
reconciliation
seemed
to
fail.
An
awful
month
passed;
the
false
fronts
and
detached
cuffs
were
all
back
again;
the
unhappy
lover
seemed
to
glory
in
their
perfidy.
At
last,
one
gloomy
evening,
I
found
on
opening
his
bundle
that
he
had
bought
a
stock
of
celluloids,
and
my
heart
told
me
that
she
had
abandoned
him
for
ever.
Of
what
my
poor
friend
suffered
at
this
time,
I
can
give
you
no
idea;
suffice
it
to
say
that
he
passed
from
celluloid
to
a
blue
flannel
shirt
and
from
blue
to
grey.
The
sight
of
a
red
cotton
handkerchief
in
his
wash
at
length
warned
me
that
his
disappointed
love
had
unhinged
his
mind,
and
I
feared
the
worst.
Then
came
an
agonizing
interval
of
three
weeks
during
which
he
sent
me
nothing,
and
after
that
came
the
last
parcel
that
I
ever
received
from
him
an
enormous
bundle
that
seemed
to
contain
all
his
effects.
In
this,
to
my
horror,
I
discovered
one
shirt
the
breast
of
which
was
stained
a
deep
crimson
with
his
blood,
and
pierced
by
a
ragged
hole
that
showed
where
a
bullet
had
singed
through
into
his
heart.
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