 | Tales of the jazz age |  |
VI
When, six months later, the engagement of Miss
Hildegarde Moncrief to Mr. Benjamin Button was made
known (I say "made known," for General Moncrief declared
he would rather fall upon his sword than announce
it), the excitement in Baltimore society reached a feverish
pitch. The almost forgotten story of Benjamin's
birth was remembered and sent out upon the winds of
scandal in picaresque and incredible forms. It was said
that Benjamin was really the father of Roger Button,
that he was his brother who had been in prison for forty
years, that he was John Wilkes Booth in disguise—and,
finally, that he had two small conical horns sprouting
from his head.
The Sunday supplements of the New York papers
played up the case with fascinating sketches which
showed the head of Benjamin Button attached to a fish,
to a snake, and, finally, to a body of solid brass. He became
known, journalistically, as the Mystery Man of
Maryland. But the true story, as is usually the case,
had a very small circulation.
However, every one agreed with General Moncrief
that it was "criminal" for a lovely girl who could have
married any beau in Baltimore to throw herself into the
arms of a man who was assuredly fifty. In vain Mr.
Roger Button published his son's birth certificate in
large type in the Baltimore Blaze. No one believed it.
You had only to look at Benjamin and see.
On the part of the two people most concerned there
was no wavering. So many of the stories about her
fiancé were false that Hildegarde refused stubbornly to
believe even the true one. In vain General Moncrief
pointed out to her the high mortality among men of
fifty—or, at least, among men who looked fifty; in vain
he told her of the instability of the wholesale hardware
business. Hildegarde had chosen to marry for mellowness—and
marry she did. . . .
| Tales of the jazz age | |