mirror of
https://github.com/standardebooks/o-henry_short-fiction.git
synced 2024-12-07 10:37:39 +08:00
Adjust initialisms
This commit is contained in:
Alex Cabal
parent
05b913c15e
commit
d5fbeb34ce
@ -95,7 +95,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Nothing much,” said the Kid calmly. “I eat my first iguana steak today. They’re them big lizards, you sabe? I reckon, though, that frijoles and side bacon would do me about as well. Do you care for iguanas, Thacker?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, nor for some other kinds of reptiles,” said Thacker.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was three in the afternoon, and in another hour he would be in his state of beatitude.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s time you were making good, sonny,” he went on, with an ugly look on his reddened face. “You’re not playing up to me square. You’ve been the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have had veal for every meal on a gold dish if you’d wanted it. Now, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kid, do you think it’s right to leave me out so long on a husk diet? What’s the trouble? Don’t you get your filial eyes on anything that looks like cash in the Casa Blanca? Don’t tell me you don’t. Everybody knows where old Urique keeps his stuff. It’s <abbr class="initialism">US</abbr> currency, too; he don’t accept anything else. What’s doing? Don’t say ‘nothing’ this time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s time you were making good, sonny,” he went on, with an ugly look on his reddened face. “You’re not playing up to me square. You’ve been the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have had veal for every meal on a gold dish if you’d wanted it. Now, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kid, do you think it’s right to leave me out so long on a husk diet? What’s the trouble? Don’t you get your filial eyes on anything that looks like cash in the Casa Blanca? Don’t tell me you don’t. Everybody knows where old Urique keeps his stuff. It’s <abbr class="initialism">U.S.</abbr> currency, too; he don’t accept anything else. What’s doing? Don’t say ‘nothing’ this time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, sure,” said the Kid, admiring his diamond, “there’s plenty of money up there. I’m no judge of collateral in bunches, but I will undertake for to say that I’ve seen the rise of $50,000 at a time in that tin grub box that my adopted father calls his safe. And he lets me carry the key sometimes just to show me that he knows I’m the real little Francisco that strayed from the herd a long time ago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked Thacker, angrily. “Don’t you forget that I can upset your applecart any day I want to. If old Urique knew you were an imposter, what sort of things would happen to you? Oh, you don’t know this country, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Texas Kid. The laws here have got mustard spread between ’em. These people here’d stretch you out like a frog that had been stepped on, and give you about fifty sticks at every corner of the plaza. And they’d wear every stick out, too. What was left of you they’d feed to alligators.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I might just as well tell you now, pardner,” said the Kid, sliding down low on his steamer chair, “that things are going to stay just as they are. They’re about right now.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -32,7 +32,7 @@
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:valediction">Your <abbr>Obt.</abbr> Servant,</p>
|
||||
<p class="signature" epub:type="z3998:sender">John De Graffenreid Atwood,</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr class="initialism">US</abbr> Consul at Coralio.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr class="initialism">U.S.</abbr> Consul at Coralio.</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:postscript"><abbr class="initialism">P.S.</abbr>—Hello! Uncle Obadiah. How’s the old burg racking along? What would the government do without you and me? Look out for a green-headed parrot and a bunch of bananas soon, from your old friend</p>
|
||||
<p class="signature" epub:type="z3998:sender">Johnny</p>
|
||||
</footer>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="the-world-and-the-door" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">The World and the Door</h2>
|
||||
<p>A favourite dodge to get your story read by the public is to assert that it is true, and then add that Truth is stranger than Fiction. I do not know if the yarn I am anxious for you to read is true; but the Spanish purser of the fruit steamer <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Carrero</i> swore to me by the shrine of Santa Guadalupe that he had the facts from the <abbr class="initialism">US</abbr> vice-consul at La Paz—a person who could not possibly have been cognizant of half of them.</p>
|
||||
<p>A favourite dodge to get your story read by the public is to assert that it is true, and then add that Truth is stranger than Fiction. I do not know if the yarn I am anxious for you to read is true; but the Spanish purser of the fruit steamer <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Carrero</i> swore to me by the shrine of Santa Guadalupe that he had the facts from the <abbr class="initialism">U.S.</abbr> vice-consul at La Paz—a person who could not possibly have been cognizant of half of them.</p>
|
||||
<p>As for the adage quoted above, I take pleasure in puncturing it by affirming that I read in a purely fictional story the other day the line: “ ‘Be it so,’ said the policeman.” Nothing so strange has yet cropped out in Truth.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>When <abbr class="name">H.</abbr> Ferguson Hedges, millionaire promoter, investor and man-about- New-York, turned his thoughts upon matters convivial, and word of it went “down the line,” bouncers took a precautionary turn at the Indian clubs, waiters put ironstone china on his favourite tables, cab drivers crowded close to the curbstone in front of all-night cafés, and careful cashiers in his regular haunts charged up a few bottles to his account by way of preface and introduction.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -57,7 +57,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“So’ve you,” said the burglar, rather glumly. “Instead of sitting here talking impudence and taking the bread out of a poor man’s mouth, what you’d like to be doing is hiding under the bed and screeching at the top of your voice.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’re right, old man,” said Tommy, heartily. “I wonder what they make us do it for? I think the <abbr class="initialism">SPCC</abbr> ought to interfere. I’m sure it’s neither agreeable nor usual for a kid of my age to butt in when a full-grown burglar is at work and offer him a red sled and a pair of skates not to awaken his sick mother. And look how they make the burglars act! You’d think editors would know—but what’s the use?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The burglar wiped his hands on the tablecloth and arose with a yawn.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, let’s get through with it,” he said. “God bless you, my little boy! you have saved a man from committing a crime this night. Bessie shall pray for you as soon as I get home and give her her orders. I shall never burglarize another house—at least not until the June magazines are out. It’ll be your little sister’s turn then to run in on me while I am abstracting the <abbr class="initialism">US</abbr> 4 percent from the tea urn and buy me off with her coral necklace and a falsetto kiss.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, let’s get through with it,” he said. “God bless you, my little boy! you have saved a man from committing a crime this night. Bessie shall pray for you as soon as I get home and give her her orders. I shall never burglarize another house—at least not until the June magazines are out. It’ll be your little sister’s turn then to run in on me while I am abstracting the <abbr class="initialism">U.S.</abbr> 4 percent from the tea urn and buy me off with her coral necklace and a falsetto kiss.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You haven’t got all the kicks coming to you,” sighed Tommy, crawling out of his chair. “Think of the sleep I’m losing. But it’s tough on both of us, old man. I wish you could get out of the story and really rob somebody. Maybe you’ll have the chance if they dramatize us.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Never!” said the burglar, gloomily. “Between the box office and my better impulses that your leading juveniles are supposed to awaken and the magazines that pay on publication, I guess I’ll always be broke.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m sorry,” said Tommy, sympathetically. “But I can’t help myself any more than you can. It’s one of the canons of household fiction that no burglar shall be successful. The burglar must be foiled by a kid like me, or by a young lady heroine, or at the last moment by his old pal, Red Mike, who recognizes the house as one in which he used to be the coachman. You have got the worst end of it in any kind of a story.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Be off with you, then,’ says I, out of patience with him, ‘and send me Doc Millikin. Ask Doc to come and see me.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Doc comes and looks through the bars at me, surrounded by dirty soldiers, with even my shoes and canteen confiscated, and he looks mightily pleased.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Hello, Yank,’ says he, ‘getting a little taste of Johnson’s Island, now, ain’t ye?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Doc,’ says I, ‘I’ve just had an interview with the <abbr class="initialism">US</abbr> consul. I gather from his remarks that I might just as well have been caught selling suspenders in Kishineff under the name of Rosenstein as to be in my present condition. It seems that the only maritime aid I am to receive from the United States is some navy-plug to chew. Doc,’ says I, ‘can’t you suspend hostility on the slavery question long enough to do something for me?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Doc,’ says I, ‘I’ve just had an interview with the <abbr class="initialism">U.S.</abbr> consul. I gather from his remarks that I might just as well have been caught selling suspenders in Kishineff under the name of Rosenstein as to be in my present condition. It seems that the only maritime aid I am to receive from the United States is some navy-plug to chew. Doc,’ says I, ‘can’t you suspend hostility on the slavery question long enough to do something for me?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘It ain’t been my habit,’ Doc Millikin answers, ‘to do any painless dentistry when I find a Yank cutting an eyetooth. So the Stars and Stripes ain’t lending any marines to shell the huts of the Colombian cannibals, hey? Oh, say, can you see by the dawn’s early light the star-spangled banner has fluked in the fight? What’s the matter with the War Department, hey? It’s a great thing to be a citizen of a gold-standard nation, ain’t it?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Rub it in, Doc, all you want,’ says I. ‘I guess we’re weak on foreign policy.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘For a Yank,’ says Doc, putting on his specs and talking more mild, ‘you ain’t so bad. If you had come from below the line I reckon I would have liked you right smart. Now since your country has gone back on you, you have to come to the old doctor whose cotton you burned and whose mules who stole and whose niggers you freed to help you. Ain’t that so, Yank?’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue
Block a user