diff --git a/src/epub/text/a-bird-of-bagdad.xhtml b/src/epub/text/a-bird-of-bagdad.xhtml
index d6c9e45..a76f80d 100644
--- a/src/epub/text/a-bird-of-bagdad.xhtml
+++ b/src/epub/text/a-bird-of-bagdad.xhtml
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
“The riddle? Why, it was this: ‘What kind of a hen lays the longest? Think of that! What kind of a hen lays the longest? Ain’t it like a Dutchman to risk a man’s happiness on a fool proposition like that? Now, what’s the use? What I don’t know about hens would fill several incubators. You say you’re giving imitations of the old Arab guy that gave away—libraries in Bagdad. Well, now, can you whistle up a fairy that’ll solve this hen query, or not?”
When the young man ceased the Margrave arose and paced to and fro by the park bench for several minutes. Finally he sat again, and said, in grave and impressive tones:
“I must confess, sir, that during the eight years that I have spent in search of adventure and in relieving distress I have never encountered a more interesting or a more perplexing case. I fear that I have overlooked hens in my researches and observations. As to their habits, their times and manner of laying, their many varieties and cross-breedings, their span of life, their—”
- “Oh, don’t make an Ibsen drama of it!” interrupted the young man, flippantly. “Riddles—especially old Hildebrant’s riddles—don’t have to be worked out seriously. They are light themes such as Sim Ford and Harry Thurston Peck like to handle. But, somehow, I can’t strike just the answer. Bill Watson may, and he may not. Tomorrow will tell. Well, Your Majesty, I’m glad anyhow that you butted in and whiled the time away. I guess Mr. Al Rashid himself would have bounced back if one of his constituents had conducted him up against this riddle. I’ll say good night. Peace fo’ yours, and what-you-may-call-its of Allah.”
+ “Oh, don’t make an Ibsen drama of it!” interrupted the young man, flippantly. “Riddles—especially old Hildebrant’s riddles—don’t have to be worked out seriously. They are light themes such as Sim Ford and Harry Thurston Peck like to handle. But, somehow, I can’t strike just the answer. Bill Watson may, and he may not. Tomorrow will tell. Well, Your Majesty, I’m glad anyhow that you butted in and whiled the time away. I guess Mr. Al Rashid himself would have bounced back if one of his constituents had conducted him up against this riddle. I’ll say good night. Peace fo’ yours, and what-you-may-call-its of Allah.”
The Margrave, still with a gloomy air, held out his hand.
“I cannot express my regret,” he said, sadly. “Never before have I found myself unable to assist in some way. ‘What kind of a hen lays the longest?’ It is a baffling problem. There is a hen, I believe, called the Plymouth Rock that—”
“Cut it out,” said the young man. “The Caliph trade is a mighty serious one. I don’t suppose you’d even see anything funny in a preacher’s defense of John D. Rockefeller. Well, good night, Your Nibs.”
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@
Hildebrant’s 200 pounds reposed on a bench, silver-buckling a raw leather martingale.
Bill Watson came in first.
“Vell,” said Hildebrant, shaking all over with the vile conceit of the joke-maker, “haf you guessed him? ‘Vat kind of a hen lays der longest?’ ”
- “Er—why, I think so,” said Bill, rubbing a servile chin. “I think so, Mr. Hildebrant—the one that lives the longest—Is that right?”
+ “Er—why, I think so,” said Bill, rubbing a servile chin. “I think so, Mr. Hildebrant—the one that lives the longest—Is that right?”
“Nein!” said Hildebrant, shaking his head violently. “You haf not guessed der answer.”
Bill passed on and donned a bed-tick apron and bachelorhood.
In came the young man of the Arabian Night’s fiasco—pale, melancholy, hopeless.
diff --git a/src/epub/text/a-blackjack-bargainer.xhtml b/src/epub/text/a-blackjack-bargainer.xhtml
index d0e8388..a112391 100644
--- a/src/epub/text/a-blackjack-bargainer.xhtml
+++ b/src/epub/text/a-blackjack-bargainer.xhtml
@@ -17,16 +17,16 @@
Fortune, passing over many anxious wooers, made a freakish flight into Blackjack’s bosky pockets to smile upon Pike and his faithful partner.
One day a party of spectacled, knickerbockered, and altogether absurd prospectors invaded the vicinity of the Garvey’s cabin. Pike lifted his squirrel rifle off the hooks and took a shot at them at long range on the chance of their being revenues. Happily he missed, and the unconscious agents of good luck drew nearer, disclosing their innocence of anything resembling law or justice. Later on, they offered the Garveys an enormous quantity of ready, green, crisp money for their thirty-acre patch of cleared land, mentioning, as an excuse for such a mad action, some irrelevant and inadequate nonsense about a bed of mica underlying the said property.
When the Garveys became possessed of so many dollars that they faltered in computing them, the deficiencies of life on Blackjack began to grow prominent. Pike began to talk of new shoes, a hogshead of tobacco to set in the corner, a new lock to his rifle; and, leading Martella to a certain spot on the mountainside, he pointed out to her how a small cannon—doubtless a thing not beyond the scope of their fortune in price—might be planted so as to command and defend the sole accessible trail to the cabin, to the confusion of revenues and meddling strangers forever.
- But Adam reckoned without his Eve. These things represented to him the applied power of wealth, but there slumbered in his dingy cabin an ambition that soared far above his primitive wants. Somewhere in Mrs. Garvey’s bosom still survived a spot of femininity unstarved by twenty years of Blackjack. For so long a time the sounds in her ears had been the scaly-barks dropping in the woods at noon, and the wolves singing among the rocks at night, and it was enough to have purged her of vanities. She had grown fat and sad and yellow and dull. But when the means came, she felt a rekindled desire to assume the perquisites of her sex—to sit at tea tables; to buy futile things; to whitewash the hideous veracity of life with a little form and ceremony. So she coldly vetoed Pike’s proposed system of fortifications, and announced that they would descend upon the world, and gyrate socially.
- And thus, at length, it was decided, and the thing done. The village of Laurel was their compromise between Mrs. Garvey’s preference for one of the large valley towns and Pike’s hankering for primeval solitudes. Laurel yielded a halting round of feeble social distractions comportable with Martella’s ambitions, and was not entirely without recommendation to Pike, its contiguity to the mountains presenting advantages for sudden retreat in case fashionable society should make it advisable.
+ But Adam reckoned without his Eve. These things represented to him the applied power of wealth, but there slumbered in his dingy cabin an ambition that soared far above his primitive wants. Somewhere in Mrs. Garvey’s bosom still survived a spot of femininity unstarved by twenty years of Blackjack. For so long a time the sounds in her ears had been the scaly-barks dropping in the woods at noon, and the wolves singing among the rocks at night, and it was enough to have purged her of vanities. She had grown fat and sad and yellow and dull. But when the means came, she felt a rekindled desire to assume the perquisites of her sex—to sit at tea tables; to buy futile things; to whitewash the hideous veracity of life with a little form and ceremony. So she coldly vetoed Pike’s proposed system of fortifications, and announced that they would descend upon the world, and gyrate socially.
+ And thus, at length, it was decided, and the thing done. The village of Laurel was their compromise between Mrs. Garvey’s preference for one of the large valley towns and Pike’s hankering for primeval solitudes. Laurel yielded a halting round of feeble social distractions comportable with Martella’s ambitions, and was not entirely without recommendation to Pike, its contiguity to the mountains presenting advantages for sudden retreat in case fashionable society should make it advisable.
Their descent upon Laurel had been coincident with Yancey Goree’s feverish desire to convert property into cash, and they bought the old Goree homestead, paying four thousand dollars ready money into the spendthrift’s shaking hands.
Thus it happened that while the disreputable last of the Gorees sprawled in his disreputable office, at the end of his row, spurned by the cronies whom he had gorged, strangers dwelt in the halls of his fathers.
A cloud of dust was rolling, slowly up the parched street, with something travelling in the midst of it. A little breeze wafted the cloud to one side, and a new, brightly painted carryall, drawn by a slothful gray horse, became visible. The vehicle deflected from the middle of the street as it neared Goree’s office, and stopped in the gutter directly in front of his door.
On the front seat sat a gaunt, tall man, dressed in black broadcloth, his rigid hands incarcerated in yellow kid gloves. On the back seat was a lady who triumphed over the June heat. Her stout form was armoured in a skintight silk dress of the description known as “changeable,” being a gorgeous combination of shifting hues. She sat erect, waving a much-ornamented fan, with her eyes fixed stonily far down the street. However Martella Garvey’s heart might be rejoicing at the pleasures of her new life, Blackjack had done his work with her exterior. He had carved her countenance to the image of emptiness and inanity; had imbued her with the stolidity of his crags, and the reserve of his hushed interiors. She always seemed to hear, whatever her surroundings were, the scaly-barks falling and pattering down the mountainside. She could always hear the awful silence of Blackjack sounding through the stillest of nights.
Goree watched this solemn equipage, as it drove to his door, with only faint interest; but when the lank driver wrapped the reins about his whip, awkwardly descended, and stepped into the office, he rose unsteadily to receive him, recognizing Pike Garvey, the new, the transformed, the recently civilized.
The mountaineer took the chair Goree offered him. They who cast doubts upon Garvey’s soundness of mind had a strong witness in the man’s countenance. His face was too long, a dull saffron in hue, and immobile as a statue’s. Pale-blue, unwinking round eyes without lashes added to the singularity of his gruesome visage. Goree was at a loss to account for the visit.
- “Everything all right at Laurel, Mr. Garvey?” he inquired.
- “Everything all right, sir, and mighty pleased is Missis Garvey and me with the property. Missis Garvey likes yo’ old place, and she likes the neighbourhood. Society is what she ’lows she wants, and she is gettin’ of it. The Rogerses, the Hapgoods, the Pratts and the Troys hev been to see Missis Garvey, and she hev et meals to most of thar houses. The best folks hev axed her to differ’nt kinds of doin’s. I cyan’t say, Mr. Goree, that sech things suits me—fur me, give me them thar.” Garvey’s huge, yellow-gloved hand flourished in the direction of the mountains. “That’s whar I b’long, ’mongst the wild honey bees and the b’ars. But that ain’t what I come fur to say, Mr. Goree. Thar’s somethin’ you got what me and Missis Garvey wants to buy.”
+ “Everything all right at Laurel, Mr. Garvey?” he inquired.
+ “Everything all right, sir, and mighty pleased is Missis Garvey and me with the property. Missis Garvey likes yo’ old place, and she likes the neighbourhood. Society is what she ’lows she wants, and she is gettin’ of it. The Rogerses, the Hapgoods, the Pratts and the Troys hev been to see Missis Garvey, and she hev et meals to most of thar houses. The best folks hev axed her to differ’nt kinds of doin’s. I cyan’t say, Mr. Goree, that sech things suits me—fur me, give me them thar.” Garvey’s huge, yellow-gloved hand flourished in the direction of the mountains. “That’s whar I b’long, ’mongst the wild honey bees and the b’ars. But that ain’t what I come fur to say, Mr. Goree. Thar’s somethin’ you got what me and Missis Garvey wants to buy.”
“Buy!” echoed Goree. “From me?” Then he laughed harshly. “I reckon you are mistaken about that. I reckon you are mistaken about that. I sold out to you, as you yourself expressed it, ‘lock, stock and barrel.’ There isn’t even a ramrod left to sell.”
“You’ve got it; and we ’uns want it. ‘Take the money,’ says Missis Garvey, ‘and buy it fa’r and squar’.’ ”
Goree shook his head. “The cupboard’s bare,” he said.
@@ -35,19 +35,19 @@
Garvey threw his slouch hat upon the table, and leaned forward, fixing his unblinking eyes upon Goree’s.
“There’s a old feud,” he said distinctly and slowly, “ ’tween you ’uns and the Coltranes.”
Goree frowned ominously. To speak of his feud to a feudist is a serious breach of the mountain etiquette. The man from “back yan’ ” knew it as well as the lawyer did.
- “Na offense,” he went on “but purely in the way of business. Missis Garvey hev studied all about feuds. Most of the quality folks in the mountains hev ’em. The Settles and the Goforths, the Rankins and the Boyds, the Silers and the Galloways, hev all been cyarin’ on feuds f’om twenty to a hundred year. The last man to drap was when yo’ uncle, Jedge Paisley Goree, ’journed co’t and shot Len Coltrane f’om the bench. Missis Garvey and me, we come f’om the po’ white trash. Nobody wouldn’t pick a feud with we ’uns, no mo’n with a fam’ly of tree-toads. Quality people everywhar, says Missis Garvey, has feuds. We ’uns ain’t quality, but we’re buyin’ into it as fur as we can. ‘Take the money, then,’ says Missis Garvey, ‘and buy Mr. Goree’s feud, fa’r and squar’.’ ”
+ “Na offense,” he went on “but purely in the way of business. Missis Garvey hev studied all about feuds. Most of the quality folks in the mountains hev ’em. The Settles and the Goforths, the Rankins and the Boyds, the Silers and the Galloways, hev all been cyarin’ on feuds f’om twenty to a hundred year. The last man to drap was when yo’ uncle, Jedge Paisley Goree, ’journed co’t and shot Len Coltrane f’om the bench. Missis Garvey and me, we come f’om the po’ white trash. Nobody wouldn’t pick a feud with we ’uns, no mo’n with a fam’ly of tree-toads. Quality people everywhar, says Missis Garvey, has feuds. We ’uns ain’t quality, but we’re buyin’ into it as fur as we can. ‘Take the money, then,’ says Missis Garvey, ‘and buy Mr. Goree’s feud, fa’r and squar’.’ ”
The squirrel hunter straightened a leg half across the room, drew a roll of bills from his pocket, and threw them on the table.
- “Thar’s two hundred dollars, Mr. Goree; what you would call a fa’r price for a feud that’s been ’lowed to run down like yourn hev. Thar’s only you left to cyar’ on yo’ side of it, and you’d make mighty po’ killin’. I’ll take it off yo’ hands, and it’ll set me and Missis Garvey up among the quality. Thar’s the money.”
+ “Thar’s two hundred dollars, Mr. Goree; what you would call a fa’r price for a feud that’s been ’lowed to run down like yourn hev. Thar’s only you left to cyar’ on yo’ side of it, and you’d make mighty po’ killin’. I’ll take it off yo’ hands, and it’ll set me and Missis Garvey up among the quality. Thar’s the money.”
The little roll of currency on the table slowly untwisted itself, writhing and jumping as its folds relaxed. In the silence that followed Garvey’s last speech the rattling of the poker chips in the courthouse could be plainly heard. Goree knew that the sheriff had just won a pot, for the subdued whoop with which he always greeted a victory floated across the square upon the crinkly heat waves. Beads of moisture stood on Goree’s brow. Stooping, he drew the wicker-covered demijohn from under the table, and filled a tumbler from it.
- “A little corn liquor, Mr. Garvey? Of course you are joking about—what you spoke of? Opens quite a new market, doesn’t it? Feuds. Prime, two-fifty to three. Feuds, slightly damaged—two hundred, I believe you said, Mr. Garvey?”
+ “A little corn liquor, Mr. Garvey? Of course you are joking about—what you spoke of? Opens quite a new market, doesn’t it? Feuds. Prime, two-fifty to three. Feuds, slightly damaged—two hundred, I believe you said, Mr. Garvey?”
Goree laughed self-consciously.
The mountaineer took the glass Goree handed him, and drank the whisky without a tremor of the lids of his staring eyes. The lawyer applauded the feat by a look of envious admiration. He poured his own drink, and took it like a drunkard, by gulps, and with shudders at the smell and taste.
“Two hundred,” repeated Garvey. “Thar’s the money.”
A sudden passion flared up in Goree’s brain. He struck the table with his fist. One of the bills flipped over and touched his hand. He flinched as if something had stung him.
“Do you come to me,” he shouted, “seriously with such a ridiculous, insulting, darned-fool proposition?”
“It’s fa’r and squar’,” said the squirrel hunter, but he reached out his hand as if to take back the money; and then Goree knew that his own flurry of rage had not been from pride or resentment, but from anger at himself, knowing that he would set foot in the deeper depths that were being opened to him. He turned in an instant from an outraged gentleman to an anxious chafferer recommending his goods.
- “Don’t be in a hurry, Garvey,” he said, his face crimson and his speech thick. “I accept your p-p-proposition, though it’s dirt cheap at two hundred. A t-trade’s all right when both p-purchaser and b-buyer are s-satisfied. Shall I w-wrap it up for you, Mr. Garvey?”
- Garvey rose, and shook out his broadcloth. “Missis Garvey will be pleased. You air out of it, and it stands Coltrane and Garvey. Just a scrap ov writin’, Mr. Goree, you bein’ a lawyer, to show we traded.”
+ “Don’t be in a hurry, Garvey,” he said, his face crimson and his speech thick. “I accept your p-p-proposition, though it’s dirt cheap at two hundred. A t-trade’s all right when both p-purchaser and b-buyer are s-satisfied. Shall I w-wrap it up for you, Mr. Garvey?”
+ Garvey rose, and shook out his broadcloth. “Missis Garvey will be pleased. You air out of it, and it stands Coltrane and Garvey. Just a scrap ov writin’, Mr. Goree, you bein’ a lawyer, to show we traded.”
Goree seized a sheet of paper and a pen. The money was clutched in his moist hand. Everything else suddenly seemed to grow trivial and light.
“Bill of sale, by all means. ‘Right, title, and interest in and to’ … ‘forever warrant and—’ No, Garvey, we’ll have to leave out that ‘defend,’ ” said Goree with a loud laugh. “You’ll have to defend this title yourself.”
The mountaineer received the amazing screed that the lawyer handed him, folded it with immense labour, and laced it carefully in his pocket.
@@ -55,10 +55,10 @@
The mountaineer crooked his long frame to look through the window in the direction indicated by the other. Colonel Abner Coltrane, an erect, portly gentleman of about fifty, wearing the inevitable long, double-breasted frock coat of the Southern lawmaker, and an old high silk hat, was passing on the opposite sidewalk. As Garvey looked, Goree glanced at his face. If there be such a thing as a yellow wolf, here was its counterpart. Garvey snarled as his unhuman eyes followed the moving figure, disclosing long, amber-coloured fangs.
“Is that him? Why, that’s the man who sent me to the pen’tentiary once!”
“He used to be district attorney,” said Goree carelessly. “And, by the way, he’s a first-class shot.”
- “I kin hit a squirrel’s eye at a hundred yard,” said Garvey. “So that thar’s Coltrane! I made a better trade than I was thinkin’. I’ll take keer ov this feud, Mr. Goree, better’n you ever did!”
+ “I kin hit a squirrel’s eye at a hundred yard,” said Garvey. “So that thar’s Coltrane! I made a better trade than I was thinkin’. I’ll take keer ov this feud, Mr. Goree, better’n you ever did!”
He moved toward the door, but lingered there, betraying a slight perplexity.
“Anything else today?” inquired Goree with frothy sarcasm. “Any family traditions, ancestral ghosts, or skeletons in the closet? Prices as low as the lowest.”
- “Thar was another thing,” replied the unmoved squirrel hunter, “that Missis Garvey was thinkin’ of. ’Tain’t so much in my line as t’other, but she wanted partic’lar that I should inquire, and ef you was willin’, ‘pay fur it,’ she says, ‘fa’r and squar’.’ Thar’s a buryin’ groun’, as you know, Mr. Goree, in the yard of yo’ old place, under the cedars. Them that lies thar is yo’ folks what was killed by the Coltranes. The monyments has the names on ’em. Missis Garvey says a fam’ly buryin’ groun’ is a sho’ sign of quality. She says ef we git the feud, thar’s somethin’ else ought to go with it. The names on them monyments is ‘Goree,’ but they can be changed to ourn by—”
+ “Thar was another thing,” replied the unmoved squirrel hunter, “that Missis Garvey was thinkin’ of. ’Tain’t so much in my line as t’other, but she wanted partic’lar that I should inquire, and ef you was willin’, ‘pay fur it,’ she says, ‘fa’r and squar’.’ Thar’s a buryin’ groun’, as you know, Mr. Goree, in the yard of yo’ old place, under the cedars. Them that lies thar is yo’ folks what was killed by the Coltranes. The monyments has the names on ’em. Missis Garvey says a fam’ly buryin’ groun’ is a sho’ sign of quality. She says ef we git the feud, thar’s somethin’ else ought to go with it. The names on them monyments is ‘Goree,’ but they can be changed to ourn by—”
“Go! Go!” screamed Goree, his face turning purple. He stretched out both hands toward the mountaineer, his fingers hooked and shaking. “Go, you ghoul! Even a Ch-Chinaman protects the g-graves of his ancestors—go!”
The squirrel hunter slouched out of the door to his carryall. While he was climbing over the wheel Goree was collecting, with feverish celerity, the money that had fallen from his hand to the floor. As the vehicle slowly turned about, the sheep, with a coat of newly grown wool, was hurrying, in indecent haste, along the path to the courthouse.
At three o’clock in the morning they brought him back to his office, shorn and unconscious. The sheriff, the sportive deputy, the county clerk, and the gay attorney carried him, the chalk-faced man “from the valley” acting as escort.
diff --git a/src/epub/text/a-call-loan.xhtml b/src/epub/text/a-call-loan.xhtml
index 6a96793..4bbef79 100644
--- a/src/epub/text/a-call-loan.xhtml
+++ b/src/epub/text/a-call-loan.xhtml
@@ -14,13 +14,13 @@
Long Bill was a graduate of the camp and trail. Luck and thrift, a cool head, and a telescopic eye for mavericks had raised him from cowboy to be a cowman. Then came the boom in cattle, and Fortune, stepping gingerly among the cactus thorns, came and emptied her cornucopia at the doorstep of the ranch.
In the little frontier city of Chaparosa, Longley built a costly residence. Here he became a captive, bound to the chariot of social existence. He was doomed to become a leading citizen. He struggled for a time like a mustang in his first corral, and then he hung up his quirt and spurs. Time hung heavily on his hands. He organised the First National Bank of Chaparosa, and was elected its president.
One day a dyspeptic man, wearing double-magnifying glasses, inserted an official-looking card between the bars of the cashier’s window of the First National Bank. Five minutes later the bank force was dancing at the beck and call of a national bank examiner.
- This examiner, Mr. J. Edgar Todd, proved to be a thorough one.
- At the end of it all the examiner put on his hat, and called the president, Mr. William R. Longley, into the private office.
+ This examiner, Mr. J. Edgar Todd, proved to be a thorough one.
+ At the end of it all the examiner put on his hat, and called the president, Mr. William R. Longley, into the private office.
“Well, how do you find things?” asked Longley, in his slow, deep tones. “Any brands in the roundup you didn’t like the looks of?”
- “The bank checks up all right, Mr. Longley,” said Todd; “and I find your loans in very good shape—with one exception. You are carrying one very bad bit of paper—one that is so bad that I have been thinking that you surely do not realise the serious position it places you in. I refer to a call loan of $10,000 made to Thomas Merwin. Not only is the amount in excess of the maximum sum the bank can loan any individual legally, but it is absolutely without endorsement or security. Thus you have doubly violated the national banking laws, and have laid yourself open to criminal prosecution by the Government. A report of the matter to the Comptroller of the Currency—which I am bound to make—would, I am sure, result in the matter being turned over to the Department of Justice for action. You see what a serious thing it is.”
+ “The bank checks up all right, Mr. Longley,” said Todd; “and I find your loans in very good shape—with one exception. You are carrying one very bad bit of paper—one that is so bad that I have been thinking that you surely do not realise the serious position it places you in. I refer to a call loan of $10,000 made to Thomas Merwin. Not only is the amount in excess of the maximum sum the bank can loan any individual legally, but it is absolutely without endorsement or security. Thus you have doubly violated the national banking laws, and have laid yourself open to criminal prosecution by the Government. A report of the matter to the Comptroller of the Currency—which I am bound to make—would, I am sure, result in the matter being turned over to the Department of Justice for action. You see what a serious thing it is.”
Bill Longley was leaning his lengthy, slowly moving frame back in his swivel chair. His hands were clasped behind his head, and he turned a little to look the examiner in the face. The examiner was surprised to see a smile creep about the rugged mouth of the banker, and a kindly twinkle in his light-blue eyes. If he saw the seriousness of the affair, it did not show in his countenance.
“Of course, you don’t know Tom Merwin,” said Longley, almost genially. “Yes, I know about that loan. It hasn’t any security except Tom Merwin’s word. Somehow, I’ve always found that when a man’s word is good it’s the best security there is. Oh, yes, I know the Government doesn’t think so. I guess I’ll see Tom about that note.”
- Mr. Todd’s dyspepsia seemed to grow suddenly worse. He looked at the chaparral banker through his double-magnifying glasses in amazement.
+ Mr. Todd’s dyspepsia seemed to grow suddenly worse. He looked at the chaparral banker through his double-magnifying glasses in amazement.
“You see,” said Longley, easily explaining the thing away, “Tom heard of 2000 head of two-year-olds down near Rocky Ford on the Rio Grande that could be had for $8 a head. I reckon ’twas one of old Leandro Garcia’s outfits that he had smuggled over, and he wanted to make a quick turn on ’em. Those cattle are worth $15 on the hoof in Kansas City. Tom knew it and I knew it. He had $6,000, and I let him have the $10,000 to make the deal with. His brother Ed took ’em on to market three weeks ago. He ought to be back ’most any day now with the money. When he comes Tom’ll pay that note.”
The bank examiner was shocked. It was, perhaps, his duty to step out to the telegraph office and wire the situation to the Comptroller. But he did not. He talked pointedly and effectively to Longley for three minutes. He succeeded in making the banker understand that he stood upon the border of a catastrophe. And then he offered a tiny loophole of escape.
“I am going to Hilldale’s tonight,” he told Longley, “to examine a bank there. I will pass through Chaparosa on my way back. At twelve o’clock tomorrow I shall call at this bank. If this loan has been cleared out of the way by that time it will not be mentioned in my report. If not—I will have to do my duty.”
diff --git a/src/epub/text/a-chaparral-christmas-gift.xhtml b/src/epub/text/a-chaparral-christmas-gift.xhtml
index f3faba5..39a5606 100644
--- a/src/epub/text/a-chaparral-christmas-gift.xhtml
+++ b/src/epub/text/a-chaparral-christmas-gift.xhtml
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
But while the wedding feast was at its liveliest there descended upon it Johnny McRoy, bitten by jealousy, like one possessed.
“I’ll give you a Christmas present,” he yelled, shrilly, at the door, with his .45 in his hand. Even then he had some reputation as an offhand shot.
His first bullet cut a neat underbit in Madison Lane’s right ear. The barrel of his gun moved an inch. The next shot would have been the bride’s had not Carson, a sheepman, possessed a mind with triggers somewhat well oiled and in repair. The guns of the wedding party had been hung, in their belts, upon nails in the wall when they sat at table, as a concession to good taste. But Carson, with great promptness, hurled his plate of roast venison and frijoles at McRoy, spoiling his aim. The second bullet, then, only shattered the white petals of a Spanish dagger flower suspended two feet above Rosita’s head.
- The guests spurned their chairs and jumped for their weapons. It was considered an improper act to shoot the bride and groom at a wedding. In about six seconds there were twenty or so bullets due to be whizzing in the direction of Mr. McRoy.
+ The guests spurned their chairs and jumped for their weapons. It was considered an improper act to shoot the bride and groom at a wedding. In about six seconds there were twenty or so bullets due to be whizzing in the direction of Mr. McRoy.
“I’ll shoot better next time,” yelled Johnny; “and there’ll be a next time.” He backed rapidly out the door.
Carson, the sheepman, spurred on to attempt further exploits by the success of his plate-throwing, was first to reach the door. McRoy’s bullet from the darkness laid him low.
The cattlemen then swept out upon him, calling for vengeance, for, while the slaughter of a sheepman has not always lacked condonement, it was a decided misdemeanour in this instance. Carson was innocent; he was no accomplice at the matrimonial proceedings; nor had anyone heard him quote the line “Christmas comes but once a year” to the guests.
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
One who has been crossed in love should never breathe the odour from the blossoms of the ratama tree. It stirs the memory to a dangerous degree.
One December in the Frio country there was a ratama tree in full bloom, for the winter had been as warm as springtime. That way rode the Frio Kid and his satellite and co-murderer, Mexican Frank. The kid reined in his mustang, and sat in his saddle, thoughtful and grim, with dangerously narrowing eyes. The rich, sweet scent touched him somewhere beneath his ice and iron.
“I don’t know what I’ve been thinking about, Mex,” he remarked in his usual mild drawl, “to have forgot all about a Christmas present I got to give. I’m going to ride over tomorrow night and shoot Madison Lane in his own house. He got my girl—Rosita would have had me if he hadn’t cut into the game. I wonder why I happened to overlook it up to now?”
- “Ah, shucks, Kid,” said Mexican, “don’t talk foolishness. You know you can’t get within a mile of Mad Lane’s house tomorrow night. I see old man Allen day before yesterday, and he says Mad is going to have Christmas doings at his house. You remember how you shot up the festivities when Mad was married, and about the threats you made? Don’t you suppose Mad Lane’ll kind of keep his eye open for a certain Mr. Kid? You plumb make me tired, Kid, with such remarks.”
+ “Ah, shucks, Kid,” said Mexican, “don’t talk foolishness. You know you can’t get within a mile of Mad Lane’s house tomorrow night. I see old man Allen day before yesterday, and he says Mad is going to have Christmas doings at his house. You remember how you shot up the festivities when Mad was married, and about the threats you made? Don’t you suppose Mad Lane’ll kind of keep his eye open for a certain Mr. Kid? You plumb make me tired, Kid, with such remarks.”
“I’m going,” repeated the Frio Kid, without heat, “to go to Madison Lane’s Christmas doings, and kill him. I ought to have done it a long time ago. Why, Mex, just two weeks ago I dreamed me and Rosita was married instead of her and him; and we was living in a house, and I could see her smiling at me, and—oh! h⸺l, Mex, he got her; and I’ll get him—yes, sir, on Christmas Eve he got her, and then’s when I’ll get him.”
“There’s other ways of committing suicide,” advised Mexican. “Why don’t you go and surrender to the sheriff?”
“I’ll get him,” said the Kid.
@@ -42,12 +42,12 @@
The Christmas tree, of course, delighted the youngsters, and above all were they pleased when Santa Claus himself in magnificent white beard and furs appeared and began to distribute the toys.
“It’s my papa,” announced Billy Sampson, aged six. “I’ve seen him wear ’em before.”
Berkly, a sheepman, an old friend of Lane, stopped Rosita as she was passing by him on the gallery, where he was sitting smoking.
- “Well, Mrs. Lane,” said he, “I suppose by this Christmas you’ve gotten over being afraid of that fellow McRoy, haven’t you? Madison and I have talked about it, you know.”
+ “Well, Mrs. Lane,” said he, “I suppose by this Christmas you’ve gotten over being afraid of that fellow McRoy, haven’t you? Madison and I have talked about it, you know.”
“Very nearly,” said Rosita, smiling, “but I am still nervous sometimes. I shall never forget that awful time when he came so near to killing us.”
“He’s the most cold-hearted villain in the world,” said Berkly. “The citizens all along the border ought to turn out and hunt him down like a wolf.”
“He has committed awful crimes,” said Rosita, “but—I—don’t—know. I think there is a spot of good somewhere in everybody. He was not always bad—that I know.”
Rosita turned into the hallway between the rooms. Santa Claus, in muffling whiskers and furs, was just coming through.
- “I heard what you said through the window, Mrs. Lane,” he said. “I was just going down in my pocket for a Christmas present for your husband. But I’ve left one for you, instead. It’s in the room to your right.”
+ “I heard what you said through the window, Mrs. Lane,” he said. “I was just going down in my pocket for a Christmas present for your husband. But I’ve left one for you, instead. It’s in the room to your right.”
“Oh, thank you, kind Santa Claus,” said Rosita, brightly.
Rosita went into the room, while Santa Claus stepped into the cooler air of the yard.
She found no one in the room but Madison.
diff --git a/src/epub/text/a-chaparral-prince.xhtml b/src/epub/text/a-chaparral-prince.xhtml
index ab6b790..d83032c 100644
--- a/src/epub/text/a-chaparral-prince.xhtml
+++ b/src/epub/text/a-chaparral-prince.xhtml
@@ -12,13 +12,13 @@
The din of the day’s quarrying was over—the blasting and drilling, the creaking of the great cranes, the shouts of the foremen, the backing and shifting of the flatcars hauling the heavy blocks of limestone. Down in the hotel office three or four of the labourers were growling and swearing over a belated game of checkers. Heavy odours of stewed meat, hot grease, and cheap coffee hung like a depressing fog about the house.
Lena lit the stump of a candle and sat limply upon her wooden chair. She was eleven years old, thin and ill-nourished. Her back and limbs were sore and aching. But the ache in her heart made the biggest trouble. The last straw had been added to the burden upon her small shoulders. They had taken away Grimm. Always at night, however tired she might be, she had turned to Grimm for comfort and hope. Each time had Grimm whispered to her that the prince or the fairy would come and deliver her out of the wicked enchantment. Every night she had taken fresh courage and strength from Grimm.
To whatever tale she read she found an analogy in her own condition. The woodcutter’s lost child, the unhappy goose girl, the persecuted stepdaughter, the little maiden imprisoned in the witch’s hut—all these were but transparent disguises for Lena, the overworked kitchenmaid in the Quarrymen’s Hotel. And always when the extremity was direst came the good fairy or the gallant prince to the rescue.
- So, here in the ogre’s castle, enslaved by a wicked spell, Lena had leaned upon Grimm and waited, longing for the powers of goodness to prevail. But on the day before Mrs. Maloney had found the book in her room and had carried it away, declaring sharply that it would not do for servants to read at night; they lost sleep and did not work briskly the next day. Can one only eleven years old, living away from one’s mamma, and never having any time to play, live entirely deprived of Grimm? Just try it once and you will see what a difficult thing it is.
+ So, here in the ogre’s castle, enslaved by a wicked spell, Lena had leaned upon Grimm and waited, longing for the powers of goodness to prevail. But on the day before Mrs. Maloney had found the book in her room and had carried it away, declaring sharply that it would not do for servants to read at night; they lost sleep and did not work briskly the next day. Can one only eleven years old, living away from one’s mamma, and never having any time to play, live entirely deprived of Grimm? Just try it once and you will see what a difficult thing it is.
Lena’s home was in Texas, away up among the little mountains on the Pedernales River, in a little town called Fredericksburg. They are all German people who live in Fredericksburg. Of evenings they sit at little tables along the sidewalk and drink beer and play pinochle and scat. They are very thrifty people.
Thriftiest among them was Peter Hildesmuller, Lena’s father. And that is why Lena was sent to work in the hotel at the quarries, thirty miles away. She earned three dollars every week there, and Peter added her wages to his well-guarded store. Peter had an ambition to become as rich as his neighbour, Hugo Heffelbauer, who smoked a meerschaum pipe three feet long and had wiener schnitzel and hassenpfeffer for dinner every day in the week. And now Lena was quite old enough to work and assist in the accumulation of riches. But conjecture, if you can, what it means to be sentenced at eleven years of age from a home in the pleasant little Rhine village to hard labour in the ogre’s castle, where you must fly to serve the ogres, while they devour cattle and sheep, growling fiercely as they stamp white limestone dust from their great shoes for you to sweep and scour with your weak, aching fingers. And then—to have Grimm taken away from you!
- Lena raised the lid of an old empty case that had once contained canned corn and got out a sheet of paper and a piece of pencil. She was going to write a letter to her mamma. Tommy Ryan was going to post it for her at Ballinger’s. Tommy was seventeen, worked in the quarries, went home to Ballinger’s every night, and was now waiting in the shadows under Lena’s window for her to throw the letter out to him. That was the only way she could send a letter to Fredericksburg. Mrs. Maloney did not like for her to write letters.
+ Lena raised the lid of an old empty case that had once contained canned corn and got out a sheet of paper and a piece of pencil. She was going to write a letter to her mamma. Tommy Ryan was going to post it for her at Ballinger’s. Tommy was seventeen, worked in the quarries, went home to Ballinger’s every night, and was now waiting in the shadows under Lena’s window for her to throw the letter out to him. That was the only way she could send a letter to Fredericksburg. Mrs. Maloney did not like for her to write letters.
The stump of the candle was burning low, so Lena hastily bit the wood from around the lead of her pencil and began. This is the letter she wrote:
- Dearest Mamma:—I want so much to see you. And Gretel and Claus and Heinrich and little Adolf. I am so tired. I want to see you. Today I was slapped by Mrs. Maloney and had no supper. I could not bring in enough wood, for my hand hurt. She took my book yesterday. I mean “Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” which Uncle Leo gave me. It did not hurt anyone for me to read the book. I try to work as well as I can, but there is so much to do. I read only a little bit every night. Dear mamma, I shall tell you what I am going to do. Unless you send for me tomorrow to bring me home I shall go to a deep place I know in the river and drown. It is wicked to drown, I suppose, but I wanted to see you, and there is no one else. I am very tired, and Tommy is waiting for the letter. You will excuse me, mamma, if I do it. Your respectful and loving daughter, Lena.
+ Dearest Mamma:—I want so much to see you. And Gretel and Claus and Heinrich and little Adolf. I am so tired. I want to see you. Today I was slapped by Mrs. Maloney and had no supper. I could not bring in enough wood, for my hand hurt. She took my book yesterday. I mean “Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” which Uncle Leo gave me. It did not hurt anyone for me to read the book. I try to work as well as I can, but there is so much to do. I read only a little bit every night. Dear mamma, I shall tell you what I am going to do. Unless you send for me tomorrow to bring me home I shall go to a deep place I know in the river and drown. It is wicked to drown, I suppose, but I wanted to see you, and there is no one else. I am very tired, and Tommy is waiting for the letter. You will excuse me, mamma, if I do it. Your respectful and loving daughter, Lena.
Tommy was still waiting faithfully when the letter was concluded, and when Lena dropped it out she saw him pick it up and start up the steep hillside. Without undressing she blew out the candle and curled herself upon the mattress on the floor.
At 10:30 o’clock old man Ballinger came out of his house in his stocking feet and leaned over the gate, smoking his pipe. He looked down the big road, white in the moonshine, and rubbed one ankle with the toe of his other foot. It was time for the Fredericksburg mail to come pattering up the road.
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
While the mules were eating from their feed bags old man Ballinger brought out the mail sack and threw it into the wagon.
Fritz Bergmann was a man of three sentiments—or to be more accurate—four, the pair of mules deserving to be reckoned individually. Those mules were the chief interest and joy of his existence. Next came the Emperor of Germany and Lena Hildesmuller.
“Tell me,” said Fritz, when he was ready to start, “contains the sack a letter to Frau Hildesmuller from the little Lena at the quarries? One came in the last mail to say that she is a little sick, already. Her mamma is very anxious to hear again.”
- “Yes,” said old man Ballinger, “thar’s a letter for Mrs. Helterskelter, or some sich name. Tommy Ryan brung it over when he come. Her little gal workin’ over thar, you say?”
+ “Yes,” said old man Ballinger, “thar’s a letter for Mrs. Helterskelter, or some sich name. Tommy Ryan brung it over when he come. Her little gal workin’ over thar, you say?”
“In the hotel,” shouted Fritz, as he gathered up the lines; “eleven years old and not bigger as a frankfurter. The close-fist of a Peter Hildesmuller!—some day I shall with a big club pound that man’s dummkopf—all in and out the town. Perhaps in this letter Lena will say that she is yet feeling better. So, her mamma will be glad. Auf wiedersehen, Herr Ballinger—your feets will take cold out in the night air.”
“So long, Fritzy,” said old man Ballinger. “You got a nice cool night for your drive.”
Up the road went the little black mules at their steady trot, while Fritz thundered at them occasional words of endearment and cheer.
@@ -46,11 +46,11 @@
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Hondo Bill to the mail-larrier in solemn tones, “to be packing around such a lot of old, trashy paper as this. What d’you mean by it, anyhow? Where do you Dutchers keep your money at?”
The Ballinger mail sack opened like a cocoon under Hondo’s knife. It contained but a handful of mail. Fritz had been fuming with terror and excitement until this sack was reached. He now remembered Lena’s letter. He addressed the leader of the band, asking that that particular missive be spared.
“Much obliged, Dutch,” he said to the disturbed carrier. “I guess that’s the letter we want. Got spondulicks in it, ain’t it? Here she is. Make a light, boys.”
- Hondo found and tore open the letter to Mrs. Hildesmuller. The others stood about, lighting twisted up letters one from another. Hondo gazed with mute disapproval at the single sheet of paper covered with the angular German script.
+ Hondo found and tore open the letter to Mrs. Hildesmuller. The others stood about, lighting twisted up letters one from another. Hondo gazed with mute disapproval at the single sheet of paper covered with the angular German script.
“Whatever is this you’ve humbugged us with, Dutchy? You call this here a valuable letter? That’s a mighty low-down trick to play on your friends what come along to help you distribute your mail.”
“That’s Chiny writin’,” said Sandy Grundy, peering over Hondo’s shoulder.
“You’re off your kazip,” declared another of the gang, an effective youth, covered with silk handkerchiefs and nickel plating. “That’s shorthand. I see ’em do it once in court.”
- “Ach, no, no, no—dot is German,” said Fritz. “It is no more as a little girl writing a letter to her mamma. One poor little girl, sick and vorking hard avay from home. Ach! it is a shame. Good Mr. Robberman, you vill please let me have dot letter?”
+ “Ach, no, no, no—dot is German,” said Fritz. “It is no more as a little girl writing a letter to her mamma. One poor little girl, sick and vorking hard avay from home. Ach! it is a shame. Good Mr. Robberman, you vill please let me have dot letter?”
“What the devil do you take us for, old Pretzels?” said Hondo with sudden and surprising severity. “You ain’t presumin’ to insinuate that we gents ain’t possessed of sufficient politeness for to take an interest in the miss’s health, are you? Now, you go on, and you read that scratchin’ out loud and in plain United States language to this here company of educated society.”
Hondo twirled his six-shooter by its trigger guard and stood towering above the little German, who at once began to read the letter, translating the simple words into English. The gang of rovers stood in absolute silence, listening intently.
“How old is that kid?” asked Hondo when the letter was done.
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
“Tell mamma how you came in Fritz’s wagon,” said Frau Hildesmuller.
“I don’t know,” said Lena. “But I know how I got away from the hotel. The Prince brought me.”
“By the Emperor’s crown!” shouted Fritz, “we are all going crazy.”
- “I always knew he would come,” said Lena, sitting down on her bundle of bedclothes on the sidewalk. “Last night he came with his armed knights and captured the ogre’s castle. They broke the dishes and kicked down the doors. They pitched Mr. Maloney into a barrel of rain water and threw flour all over Mrs. Maloney. The workmen in the hotel jumped out of the windows and ran into the woods when the knights began firing their guns. They wakened me up and I peeped down the stair. And then the Prince came up and wrapped me in the bedclothes and carried me out. He was so tall and strong and fine. His face was as rough as a scrubbing brush, and he talked soft and kind and smelled of schnapps. He took me on his horse before him and we rode away among the knights. He held me close and I went to sleep that way, and didn’t wake up till I got home.”
+ “I always knew he would come,” said Lena, sitting down on her bundle of bedclothes on the sidewalk. “Last night he came with his armed knights and captured the ogre’s castle. They broke the dishes and kicked down the doors. They pitched Mr. Maloney into a barrel of rain water and threw flour all over Mrs. Maloney. The workmen in the hotel jumped out of the windows and ran into the woods when the knights began firing their guns. They wakened me up and I peeped down the stair. And then the Prince came up and wrapped me in the bedclothes and carried me out. He was so tall and strong and fine. His face was as rough as a scrubbing brush, and he talked soft and kind and smelled of schnapps. He took me on his horse before him and we rode away among the knights. He held me close and I went to sleep that way, and didn’t wake up till I got home.”
“Rubbish!” cried Fritz Bergmann. “Fairy tales! How did you come from the quarries to my wagon?”
“The Prince brought me,” said Lena, confidently.
And to this day the good people of Fredericksburg haven’t been able to make her give any other explanation.
diff --git a/src/epub/text/a-christmas-pi.xhtml b/src/epub/text/a-christmas-pi.xhtml
index 26a8c66..f91e35d 100644
--- a/src/epub/text/a-christmas-pi.xhtml
+++ b/src/epub/text/a-christmas-pi.xhtml
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
Always have I been on the lookout for the Impossible, always on the trail of the Unattainable. Someday, perhaps, I shall find a sleeping-car with a name that means something, an intelligent West Indian hallboy in a New York apartment building, a boardinghouse whose inmates occasionally smile, a man born in Manhattan, a 60-cent table d’hôte that serves six oysters the portion instead of four, a Southerner who leaves you in doubt as to his birthplace longer than ten minutes after the introduction, and myself writing a Christmas story. But that will happen ten days after the millennium, and as the millennium is to be magazineless—
Every June I am asked to write a Christmas story. Every August I promise, vow, insist, swear that it shall be ready in two weeks. And every November I protest that I am sorry, but I couldn’t think of anything new and—well, next year, sure. It was so last year and the year before. It was so this year. And I said to myself that next year it would not be so. I would spend Christmas Eve looking about me. I would get copy from a cop, material from a mater, plot from a messenger boy. And behold! it was Christmas Eve.
It was Christmas Eve, to give a synopsis of preceding chapters. I will fine-toothcomb the town for an idea next summer, quoth I. And so I walked, rode and taxi-cabbed. I spoke to waiters, subway guards, chauffeurs and newsboys and tried to draw from them some bit of life, some experience that might make a story, a Christmas story, C.O.D., at twenty cents a word. But there was not a syllable in the silly bunch, not a comma in the comatose lot.
- And then I wandered into Grand Street and I saw that which made me instinctively clutch my fountain pen. A man, unswept, unmoneyed and unstrung, was about to hurl a brick into a pawnbroker’s window. His arm was raised and he was as deliberate as Mr. Tri-Digital Brown of Chicago trying to lessen the average of Mr. John P. Hanswagner of Pittsburgh. (I always spell Pittsburgh with the final “h”; it’s a final h of a town.)
+ And then I wandered into Grand Street and I saw that which made me instinctively clutch my fountain pen. A man, unswept, unmoneyed and unstrung, was about to hurl a brick into a pawnbroker’s window. His arm was raised and he was as deliberate as Mr. Tri-Digital Brown of Chicago trying to lessen the average of Mr. John P. Hanswagner of Pittsburgh. (I always spell Pittsburgh with the final “h”; it’s a final h of a town.)
“Here, Bill,” I said, “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh, yes, you would,” he responded.
Which was my chance. “Let us withdraw to yonder inn,” I said, like a head chorus-man whose object is to “get ’em off,” “and we can discuss things.”
diff --git a/src/epub/text/a-comedy-in-rubber.xhtml b/src/epub/text/a-comedy-in-rubber.xhtml
index abc9191..2528f88 100644
--- a/src/epub/text/a-comedy-in-rubber.xhtml
+++ b/src/epub/text/a-comedy-in-rubber.xhtml
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
A Comedy in Rubber
One may hope, in spite of the metaphorists, to avoid the breath of the deadly upas tree; one may, by great good fortune, succeed in blacking the eye of the basilisk; one might even dodge the attentions of Cerberus and Argus, but no man, alive or dead, can escape the gaze of the Rubberer.
New York is the Caoutchouc City. There are many, of course, who go their ways, making money, without turning to the right or the left, but there is a tribe abroad wonderfully composed, like the Martians, solely of eyes and means of locomotion.
- These devotees of curiosity swarm, like flies, in a moment in a struggling, breathless circle about the scene of an unusual occurrence. If a workman opens a manhole, if a street car runs over a man from North Tarrytown, if a little boy drops an egg on his way home from the grocery, if a casual house or two drops into the subway, if a lady loses a nickel through a hole in the lisle thread, if the police drag a telephone and a racing chart forth from an Ibsen Society reading-room, if Senator Depew or Mr. Chuck Connors walks out to take the air—if any of these incidents or accidents takes place, you will see the mad, irresistible rush of the “rubber” tribe to the spot.
+ These devotees of curiosity swarm, like flies, in a moment in a struggling, breathless circle about the scene of an unusual occurrence. If a workman opens a manhole, if a street car runs over a man from North Tarrytown, if a little boy drops an egg on his way home from the grocery, if a casual house or two drops into the subway, if a lady loses a nickel through a hole in the lisle thread, if the police drag a telephone and a racing chart forth from an Ibsen Society reading-room, if Senator Depew or Mr. Chuck Connors walks out to take the air—if any of these incidents or accidents takes place, you will see the mad, irresistible rush of the “rubber” tribe to the spot.
The importance of the event does not count. They gaze with equal interest and absorption at a chorus girl or at a man painting a liver pill sign. They will form as deep a cordon around a man with a clubfoot as they will around a balked automobile. They have the furor rubberendi. They are optical gluttons, feasting and fattening on the misfortunes of their fellow beings. They gloat and pore and glare and squint and stare with their fishy eyes like goggle-eyed perch at the book baited with calamity.
It would seem that Cupid would find these ocular vampires too cold game for his calorific shafts, but have we not yet to discover an immune even among the Protozoa? Yes, beautiful Romance descended upon two of this tribe, and love came into their hearts as they crowded about the prostrate form of a man who had been run over by a brewery wagon.
William Pry was the first on the spot. He was an expert at such gatherings. With an expression of intense happiness on his features, he stood over the victim of the accident, listening to his groans as if to the sweetest music. When the crowd of spectators had swelled to a closely packed circle William saw a violent commotion in the crowd opposite him. Men were hurled aside like ninepins by the impact of some moving body that clove them like the rush of a tornado. With elbows, umbrella, hatpin, tongue, and fingernails doing their duty, Violet Seymour forced her way through the mob of onlookers to the first row. Strong men who even had been able to secure a seat on the 5:30 Harlem express staggered back like children as she bucked centre. Two large lady spectators who had seen the Duke of Roxburgh married and had often blocked traffic on Twenty-third Street fell back into the second row with ripped shirtwaists when Violet had finished with them. William Pry loved her at first sight.
diff --git a/src/epub/text/a-cosmopolite-in-a-cafe.xhtml b/src/epub/text/a-cosmopolite-in-a-cafe.xhtml
index bbdd7c5..0e3a791 100644
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+++ b/src/epub/text/a-cosmopolite-in-a-cafe.xhtml
@@ -11,9 +11,9 @@
At midnight the café was crowded. By some chance the little table at which I sat had escaped the eye of incomers, and two vacant chairs at it extended their arms with venal hospitality to the influx of patrons.
And then a cosmopolite sat in one of them, and I was glad, for I held a theory that since Adam no true citizen of the world has existed. We hear of them, and we see foreign labels on much luggage, but we find travellers instead of cosmopolites.
I invoke your consideration of the scene—the marble-topped tables, the range of leather-upholstered wall seats, the gay company, the ladies dressed in demi-state toilets, speaking in an exquisite visible chorus of taste, economy, opulence or art; the sedulous and largess-loving garçons, the music wisely catering to all with its raids upon the composers; the mélange of talk and laughter—and, if you will, the Würzburger in the tall glass cones that bend to your lips as a ripe cherry sways on its branch to the beak of a robber jay. I was told by a sculptor from Mauch Chunk that the scene was truly Parisian.
- My cosmopolite was named E. Rushmore Coglan, and he will be heard from next summer at Coney Island. He is to establish a new “attraction” there, he informed me, offering kingly diversion. And then his conversation rang along parallels of latitude and longitude. He took the great, round world in his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino cherry in a table d’hôte grape fruit. He spoke disrespectfully of the equator, he skipped from continent to continent, he derided the zones, he mopped up the high seas with his napkin. With a wave of his hand he would speak of a certain bazaar in Hyderabad. Whiff! He would have you on skis in Lapland. Zip! Now you rode the breakers with the Kanakas at Kealaikahiki. Presto! He dragged you through an Arkansas post-oak swamp, let you dry for a moment on the alkali plains of his Idaho ranch, then whirled you into the society of Viennese archdukes. Anon he would be telling you of a cold he acquired in a Chicago lake breeze and how old Escamila cured it in Buenos Aires with a hot infusion of the chuchula weed. You would have addressed a letter to “E. Rushmore Coglan, Esq., the Earth, Solar System, the Universe,” and have mailed it, feeling confident that it would be delivered to him.
+ My cosmopolite was named E. Rushmore Coglan, and he will be heard from next summer at Coney Island. He is to establish a new “attraction” there, he informed me, offering kingly diversion. And then his conversation rang along parallels of latitude and longitude. He took the great, round world in his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino cherry in a table d’hôte grape fruit. He spoke disrespectfully of the equator, he skipped from continent to continent, he derided the zones, he mopped up the high seas with his napkin. With a wave of his hand he would speak of a certain bazaar in Hyderabad. Whiff! He would have you on skis in Lapland. Zip! Now you rode the breakers with the Kanakas at Kealaikahiki. Presto! He dragged you through an Arkansas post-oak swamp, let you dry for a moment on the alkali plains of his Idaho ranch, then whirled you into the society of Viennese archdukes. Anon he would be telling you of a cold he acquired in a Chicago lake breeze and how old Escamila cured it in Buenos Aires with a hot infusion of the chuchula weed. You would have addressed a letter to “E. Rushmore Coglan, Esq., the Earth, Solar System, the Universe,” and have mailed it, feeling confident that it would be delivered to him.
I was sure that I had found at last the one true cosmopolite since Adam, and I listened to his worldwide discourse fearful lest I should discover in it the local note of the mere globetrotter. But his opinions never fluttered or drooped; he was as impartial to cities, countries and continents as the winds or gravitation.
- And as E. Rushmore Coglan prattled of this little planet I thought with glee of a great almost-cosmopolite who wrote for the whole world and dedicated himself to Bombay. In a poem he has to say that there is pride and rivalry between the cities of the earth, and that “the men that breed from them, they traffic up and down, but cling to their cities’ hem as a child to the mother’s gown.” And whenever they walk “by roaring streets unknown” they remember their native city “most faithful, foolish, fond; making her mere-breathed name their bond upon their bond.” And my glee was roused because I had caught Mr. Kipling napping. Here I had found a man not made from dust; one who had no narrow boasts of birthplace or country, one who, if he bragged at all, would brag of his whole round globe against the Martians and the inhabitants of the Moon.
+ And as E. Rushmore Coglan prattled of this little planet I thought with glee of a great almost-cosmopolite who wrote for the whole world and dedicated himself to Bombay. In a poem he has to say that there is pride and rivalry between the cities of the earth, and that “the men that breed from them, they traffic up and down, but cling to their cities’ hem as a child to the mother’s gown.” And whenever they walk “by roaring streets unknown” they remember their native city “most faithful, foolish, fond; making her mere-breathed name their bond upon their bond.” And my glee was roused because I had caught Mr. Kipling napping. Here I had found a man not made from dust; one who had no narrow boasts of birthplace or country, one who, if he bragged at all, would brag of his whole round globe against the Martians and the inhabitants of the Moon.
Expression on these subjects was precipitated from E. Rushmore Coglan by the third corner to our table. While Coglan was describing to me the topography along the Siberian Railway the orchestra glided into a medley. The concluding air was “Dixie,” and as the exhilarating notes tumbled forth they were almost overpowered by a great clapping of hands from almost every table.
It is worth a paragraph to say that this remarkable scene can be witnessed every evening in numerous cafés in the City of New York. Tons of brew have been consumed over theories to account for it. Some have conjectured hastily that all Southerners in town hie themselves to cafés at nightfall. This applause of the “rebel” air in a Northern city does puzzle a little; but it is not insolvable. The war with Spain, many years’ generous mint and watermelon crops, a few long-shot winners at the New Orleans racetrack, and the brilliant banquets given by the Indiana and Kansas citizens who compose the North Carolina Society have made the South rather a “fad” in Manhattan. Your manicure will lisp softly that your left forefinger reminds her so much of a gentleman’s in Richmond, Va. Oh, certainly; but many a lady has to work now—the war, you know.
When “Dixie” was being played a dark-haired young man sprang up from somewhere with a Mosby guerrilla yell and waved frantically his soft-brimmed hat. Then he strayed through the smoke, dropped into the vacant chair at our table and pulled out cigarettes.
diff --git a/src/epub/text/a-departmental-case.xhtml b/src/epub/text/a-departmental-case.xhtml
index 3d56818..3d89bc4 100644
--- a/src/epub/text/a-departmental-case.xhtml
+++ b/src/epub/text/a-departmental-case.xhtml
@@ -38,8 +38,8 @@
“Yes, yes—well—oh, that wasn’t anything,” said Standifer, “hemming” loudly and buttoning his coat again, briskly. “And now, ma’am, who was the infernal skunk—I beg your pardon, ma’am—who was the gentleman you married?”
“Benton Sharp.”
The commissioner plumped down again into his chair, with a groan. This gentle, sad little woman, in the rusty black gown, the daughter of his oldest friend, the wife of Benton Sharp! Benton Sharp, one of the most noted “bad” men in that part of the state—a man who had been a cattle thief, an outlaw, a desperado, and was now a gambler, a swaggering bully, who plied his trade in the larger frontier towns, relying upon his record and the quickness of his gun play to maintain his supremacy. Seldom did anyone take the risk of going “up against” Benton Sharp. Even the law officers were content to let him make his own terms of peace. Sharp was a ready and an accurate shot, and as lucky as a brand-new penny at coming clear from his scrapes. Standifer wondered how this pillaging eagle ever came to be mated with Amos Colvin’s little dove, and expressed his wonder.
- Mrs. Sharp sighed.
- “You see, Mr. Standifer, we didn’t know anything about him, and he can be very pleasant and kind when he wants to. We lived down in the little town of Goliad. Benton came riding down that way, and stopped there a while. I reckon I was some better looking then than I am now. He was good to me for a whole year after we were married. He insured his life for me for five thousand dollars. But for the last six months he has done everything but kill me. I often wish he had done that, too. He got out of money for a while, and abused me shamefully for not having anything he could spend. Then father died, and left me the little home in Goliad. My husband made me sell that, and turned me out into the world. I’ve barely been able to live, for I’m not strong enough to work. Lately, I heard he was making money in San Antonio, so I went there, and found him, and asked for a little help. This,” touching the livid bruise on her temple, “is what he gave me. So I came on to Austin to see the governor. I once heard father say that there was some land, or a pension, coming to him from the state that he never would ask for.”
+ Mrs. Sharp sighed.
+ “You see, Mr. Standifer, we didn’t know anything about him, and he can be very pleasant and kind when he wants to. We lived down in the little town of Goliad. Benton came riding down that way, and stopped there a while. I reckon I was some better looking then than I am now. He was good to me for a whole year after we were married. He insured his life for me for five thousand dollars. But for the last six months he has done everything but kill me. I often wish he had done that, too. He got out of money for a while, and abused me shamefully for not having anything he could spend. Then father died, and left me the little home in Goliad. My husband made me sell that, and turned me out into the world. I’ve barely been able to live, for I’m not strong enough to work. Lately, I heard he was making money in San Antonio, so I went there, and found him, and asked for a little help. This,” touching the livid bruise on her temple, “is what he gave me. So I came on to Austin to see the governor. I once heard father say that there was some land, or a pension, coming to him from the state that he never would ask for.”
Luke Standifer rose to his feet, and pushed his chair back. He looked rather perplexedly around the big office, with its handsome furniture.
“It’s a long trail to follow,” he said, slowly, “trying to get back dues from the government. There’s red tape and lawyers and rulings and evidence and courts to keep you waiting. I’m not certain,” continued the commissioner, with a profoundly meditative frown, “whether this department that I’m the boss of has any jurisdiction or not. It’s only Insurance, Statistics, and History, ma’am, and it don’t sound as if it would cover the case. But sometimes a saddle blanket can be made to stretch. You keep your seat, just for a few minutes, ma’am, till I step into the next room and see about it.”
The state treasurer was seated within his massive, complicated railings, reading a newspaper. Business for the day was about over. The clerks lolled at their desks, awaiting the closing hour. The Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History entered, and leaned in at the window.
@@ -68,12 +68,12 @@
“Your name’s Amanda, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought so. I’ve heard your dad say it often enough. Well, Amanda, here’s your father’s best friend, the head of a big office in the state government, that’s going to help you out of your troubles. And here’s the old bushwhacker and cowpuncher that your father has helped out of scrapes time and time again wants to ask you a question. Amanda, have you got money enough to run you for the next two or three days?”
- Mrs. Sharp’s white face flushed the least bit.
+ Mrs. Sharp’s white face flushed the least bit.
“Plenty, sir—for a few days.”
“All right, then, ma’am. Now you go back where you are stopping here, and you come to the office again the day after tomorrow at four o’clock in the afternoon. Very likely by that time there will be something definite to report to you.” The commissioner hesitated, and looked a trifle embarrassed. “You said your husband had insured his life for $5,000. Do you know whether the premiums have been kept paid upon it or not?”
- “He paid for a whole year in advance about five months ago,” said Mrs. Sharp. “I have the policy and receipts in my trunk.”
+ “He paid for a whole year in advance about five months ago,” said Mrs. Sharp. “I have the policy and receipts in my trunk.”
“Oh, that’s all right, then,” said Standifer. “It’s best to look after things of that sort. Some day they may come in handy.”
- Mrs. Sharp departed, and soon afterward Luke Standifer went down to the little hotel where he boarded and looked up the railroad timetable in the daily paper. Half an hour later he removed his coat and vest, and strapped a peculiarly constructed pistol holster across his shoulders, leaving the receptacle close under his left armpit. Into the holster he shoved a short-barrelled .44 calibre revolver. Putting on his clothes again, he strolled to the station and caught the five-twenty afternoon train for San Antonio.
+ Mrs. Sharp departed, and soon afterward Luke Standifer went down to the little hotel where he boarded and looked up the railroad timetable in the daily paper. Half an hour later he removed his coat and vest, and strapped a peculiarly constructed pistol holster across his shoulders, leaving the receptacle close under his left armpit. Into the holster he shoved a short-barrelled .44 calibre revolver. Putting on his clothes again, he strolled to the station and caught the five-twenty afternoon train for San Antonio.
The San Antonio Express of the following morning contained this sensational piece of news:
@@ -83,14 +83,14 @@
The Most Noted Desperado in Southwest Texas Shot to Death in the Gold Front Restaurant—Prominent State Official Successfully Defends Himself Against the Noted Bully—Magnificent Exhibition of Quick Gun Play.
Last night about eleven o’clock Benton Sharp, with two other men, entered the Gold Front Restaurant and seated themselves at a table. Sharp had been drinking, and was loud and boisterous, as he always was when under the influence of liquor. Five minutes after the party was seated a tall, well-dressed, elderly gentleman entered the restaurant. Few present recognized the Honourable Luke Standifer, the recently appointed Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History.
- Going over to the same side where Sharp was, Mr. Standifer prepared to take a seat at the next table. In hanging his hat upon one of the hooks along the wall he let it fall upon Sharp’s head. Sharp turned, being in an especially ugly humour, and cursed the other roundly. Mr. Standifer apologized calmly for the accident, but Sharp continued his vituperations. Mr. Standifer was observed to draw near and speak a few sentences to the desperado in so low a tone that no one else caught the words. Sharp sprang up, wild with rage. In the meantime Standifer had stepped some yards away, and was standing quietly with his arms folded across the breast of his loosely hanging coat.
- With that impetuous and deadly rapidity that made Sharp so dreaded, he reached for the gun he always carried in his hip pocket—a movement that has preceded the death of at least a dozen men at his hands. Quick as the motion was, the bystanders assert that it was met by the most beautiful exhibition of lightning gun-pulling ever witnessed in the Southwest. As Sharp’s pistol was being raised—and the act was really quicker than the eye could follow—a glittering .44 appeared as if by some conjuring trick in the right hand of Mr. Standifer, who, without a perceptible movement of his arm, shot Benton Sharp through the heart. It seems that the new Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History has been an old-time Indian fighter and ranger for many years, which accounts for the happy knack he has of handling a .44.
- It is not believed that Mr. Standifer will be put to any inconvenience beyond a necessary formal hearing today, as all the witnesses who were present unite in declaring that the deed was done in self-defence.
+ Going over to the same side where Sharp was, Mr. Standifer prepared to take a seat at the next table. In hanging his hat upon one of the hooks along the wall he let it fall upon Sharp’s head. Sharp turned, being in an especially ugly humour, and cursed the other roundly. Mr. Standifer apologized calmly for the accident, but Sharp continued his vituperations. Mr. Standifer was observed to draw near and speak a few sentences to the desperado in so low a tone that no one else caught the words. Sharp sprang up, wild with rage. In the meantime Standifer had stepped some yards away, and was standing quietly with his arms folded across the breast of his loosely hanging coat.
+ With that impetuous and deadly rapidity that made Sharp so dreaded, he reached for the gun he always carried in his hip pocket—a movement that has preceded the death of at least a dozen men at his hands. Quick as the motion was, the bystanders assert that it was met by the most beautiful exhibition of lightning gun-pulling ever witnessed in the Southwest. As Sharp’s pistol was being raised—and the act was really quicker than the eye could follow—a glittering .44 appeared as if by some conjuring trick in the right hand of Mr. Standifer, who, without a perceptible movement of his arm, shot Benton Sharp through the heart. It seems that the new Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History has been an old-time Indian fighter and ranger for many years, which accounts for the happy knack he has of handling a .44.
+ It is not believed that Mr. Standifer will be put to any inconvenience beyond a necessary formal hearing today, as all the witnesses who were present unite in declaring that the deed was done in self-defence.
- When Mrs. Sharp appeared at the office of the commissioner, according to appointment, she found that gentleman calmly eating a golden russet apple. He greeted her without embarrassment and without hesitation at approaching the subject that was the topic of the day.
- “I had to do it, ma’am,” he said, simply, “or get it myself. Mr. Kauffman,” he added, turning to the old clerk, “please look up the records of the Security Life Insurance Company and see if they are all right.”
+ When Mrs. Sharp appeared at the office of the commissioner, according to appointment, she found that gentleman calmly eating a golden russet apple. He greeted her without embarrassment and without hesitation at approaching the subject that was the topic of the day.
+ “I had to do it, ma’am,” he said, simply, “or get it myself. Mr. Kauffman,” he added, turning to the old clerk, “please look up the records of the Security Life Insurance Company and see if they are all right.”
“No need to look,” grunted Kauffman, who had everything in his head. “It’s all OK. They pay all losses within ten days.”
- Mrs. Sharp soon rose to depart. She had arranged to remain in town until the policy was paid. The commissioner did not detain her. She was a woman, and he did not know just what to say to her at present. Rest and time would bring her what she needed.
+ Mrs. Sharp soon rose to depart. She had arranged to remain in town until the policy was paid. The commissioner did not detain her. She was a woman, and he did not know just what to say to her at present. Rest and time would bring her what she needed.
But, as she was leaving, Luke Standifer indulged himself in an official remark:
“The Department of Insurance, Statistics, and History, ma’am, has done the best it could with your case. ’Twas a case hard to cover according to red tape. Statistics failed, and History missed fire, but, if I may be permitted to say it, we came out particularly strong on Insurance.”
diff --git a/src/epub/text/a-disagreement.xhtml b/src/epub/text/a-disagreement.xhtml
index 443b9c8..a244e32 100644
--- a/src/epub/text/a-disagreement.xhtml
+++ b/src/epub/text/a-disagreement.xhtml
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
A Disagreement
- “Dat Mr. Bergman, vot run de obera house, not dread me right,” said a Houston citizen. “Ven I go dere und vant ein dicket to see dot ‘Schpider und dot Vly’ gompany de oder night, I asg him dot he let me in mit half brice, for I was teaf py von ear, and can not but one half of dot performance hear; und he dell me I should bay double brice, as it vould dake me dwice as long to hear de berformance as anypody else.”
+ “Dat Mr. Bergman, vot run de obera house, not dread me right,” said a Houston citizen. “Ven I go dere und vant ein dicket to see dot ‘Schpider und dot Vly’ gompany de oder night, I asg him dot he let me in mit half brice, for I was teaf py von ear, and can not but one half of dot performance hear; und he dell me I should bay double brice, as it vould dake me dwice as long to hear de berformance as anypody else.”