The Daily Times: New Brunswick, N.J. Wednesday January 9 1901
GIRLS SWAPPED MEN.
But Kept the Original Rig. The Mean Trick Played Upon Two New Brunswick Gallants.
There are two young men in New Brunswick who are thoroughly convinced that a sporting life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There are two sweet, innocent young girls in Milltown who think that good things must be worked to the limit, and there is a liveryman who is trying to collect a bill for carriage hire under conditions that would give Solomon nervous prostration.
All of which is the outcome of an episode that occurred some days ago, but of which the details have just transpired.
Not so many moons ago the young men who were the heroes or victims of the adventure, arranged with their fair Milltown charmers to go for a drive, the drive to be to a well-known hostelry on the Old Bridge turnpike, where refreshments might be obtained prior to the homeward trip.
The party started off in the afternoon, paired off nicely. The lady with the numerical name had the front seat with the blonde gentleman from this city, while the back seat was occupied by her friend and his friend.
Arrived at the hotel that had been selected as the objective point of the drive, the girls disclaimed any desire to be refreshed. “We’ll sit in the carriage and wait for you if you want to go in to get a glass of soda water or a bottle of ginger pop,” they promised.
And the young men went. Hardly had the doors closed upon them before the lady on the front seat was overmastered by a consuming desire to try her skill as a whip. She gathered the ribbons, chirped to the horse and the pair drove down the road. The girls may have fixed it up beforehand, it may have been only a chance meeting, but the tact they had gone far enough only to lose he hotel behind a clump of trees, when they met two dear old friends, men friends, who were on foot.
“Why how-de-do girls.” ” Well, of, all things.” “To see you here.” “Where you going?” “What a fine carriage,” and so on and so on. Any one who has seen a pair of dear girls meet a pair of Willy boys on the Look, when the. Glad Eye is working, can supply the rest of the conversation, which culminated in an invitation from the girls to the men to get in and take a drive.
Nothing was said of the original good things, back at the hotel. They out no ice with any of the quartette. They Had Been.
The new party of four had a delightful time. They drove, and they drove. They had dinner at some little place, they had refreshments at other little places, and they did not return to Milltown until the horse was nearly dead and the clock hands dallied with the midnight hour.
The deserted gallants, after cooling their heels for some time, and finally becoming convinced that they had been I Shook Shameful, hoofed it to the nearest corner from which a trolley could be hailed and put-up car fare to get back to New Brunswick. As the car passed Millown they stood on the rear platform and said cold, cynical things about the swell girls that lived there and didn’t know how to act descent with gentlemen.
That is all of the story, except a little chapter that hasn’t been finished yet. The liveryman who let out the horse and carriage wants his money. ” We’ll be tee-totally gol-blinged, or words to that effect, if we’ll pay for a carriage to take “some other fellows out or a carriage ride,” say the original lessees of the outfit.
“We don’t know anything about the charges,” say the second pair, the winning pair, the aces. “We were invited by our friends and had nothing to do with the hiring of the carriage.”
And the queens roll their lovely blue eyes under their long blood lashes and say “Dear me! You wouldn’t expect ladies to pay for anything when there were four gentlemen in the party, now would you?” And the liveryman is trying to figure it all out so that he won’t stand to lose.