[Editorial] remove abbreviation quote from phone
This commit is contained in:
vr8ce
parent
10d8a95439
commit
1ed17639f4
@ -57,7 +57,7 @@
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<span>“ ‘Imperious what’s-his-name, dead and turned to stone—</span>
|
||||
<br/>
|
||||
<span>No use to write or call him on the ’phone.’</span>
|
||||
<span>No use to write or call him on the phone.’</span>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Hunky,’ says High Jack Snakefeeder, looking at me funny, ‘do you believe in reincarnation?’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="the-adventures-of-shamrock-jolnes" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes</h2>
|
||||
<p>I am so fortunate as to count Shamrock Jolnes, the great New York detective, among my muster of friends. Jolnes is what is called the “inside man” of the city detective force. He is an expert in the use of the typewriter, and it is his duty, whenever there is a “murder mystery” to be solved, to sit at a desk telephone at headquarters and take down the messages of “cranks” who ’phone in their confessions to having committed the crime.</p>
|
||||
<p>I am so fortunate as to count Shamrock Jolnes, the great New York detective, among my muster of friends. Jolnes is what is called the “inside man” of the city detective force. He is an expert in the use of the typewriter, and it is his duty, whenever there is a “murder mystery” to be solved, to sit at a desk telephone at headquarters and take down the messages of “cranks” who phone in their confessions to having committed the crime.</p>
|
||||
<p>But on certain “off” days when confessions are coming in slowly and three or four newspapers have run to earth as many different guilty persons, Jolnes will knock about the town with me, exhibiting, to my great delight and instruction, his marvellous powers of observation and deduction.</p>
|
||||
<p>The other day I dropped in at Headquarters and found the great detective gazing thoughtfully at a string that was tied tightly around his little finger.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Good morning, Whatsup,” he said, without turning his head. “I’m glad to notice that you’ve had your house fitted up with electric lights at last.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -45,9 +45,9 @@
|
||||
<p>“I’ll show you,” said Kernan, rising, and expanding his chest. “I’ll show you what I think of newspapers in general, and your <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i> in particular.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Three feet from their table was the telephone booth. Kernan went inside and sat at the instrument, leaving the door open. He found a number in the book, took down the receiver and made his demand upon Central. Woods sat still, looking at the sneering, cold, vigilant face waiting close to the transmitter, and listened to the words that came from the thin, truculent lips curved into a contemptuous smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i>? … I want to speak to the managing editor … Why, tell him it’s someone who wants to talk to him about the Norcross murder.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You the editor? … All right … I am the man who killed old Norcross … Wait! Hold the wire; I’m not the usual crank … Oh, there isn’t the slightest danger. I’ve just been discussing it with a detective friend of mine. I killed the old man at 2:30 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> two weeks ago tomorrow … Have a drink with you? Now, hadn’t you better leave that kind of talk to your funny man? Can’t you tell whether a man’s guying you or whether you’re being offered the biggest scoop your dull dishrag of a paper ever had? … Well, that’s so; it’s a bobtail scoop—but you can hardly expect me to ’phone in my name and address … Why? Oh, because I heard you make a specialty of solving mysterious crimes that stump the police … No, that’s not all. I want to tell you that your rotten, lying, penny sheet is of no more use in tracking an intelligent murderer or highwayman than a blind poodle would be … What? … Oh, no, this isn’t a rival newspaper office; you’re getting it straight. I did the Norcross job, and I’ve got the jewels in my suit case at—‘the name of the hotel could not be learned’—you recognize that phrase, don’t you? I thought so. You’ve used it often enough. Kind of rattles you, doesn’t it, to have the mysterious villain call up your great, big, all-powerful organ of right and justice and good government and tell you what a helpless old gasbag you are? … Cut that out; you’re not that big a fool—no, you don’t think I’m a fraud. I can tell it by your voice … Now, listen, and I’ll give you a pointer that will prove it to you. Of course you’ve had this murder case worked over by your staff of bright young blockheads. Half of the second button on old <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Norcross’s nightgown is broken off. I saw it when I took the garnet ring off her finger. I thought it was a ruby … Stop that! it won’t work.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You the editor? … All right … I am the man who killed old Norcross … Wait! Hold the wire; I’m not the usual crank … Oh, there isn’t the slightest danger. I’ve just been discussing it with a detective friend of mine. I killed the old man at 2:30 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> two weeks ago tomorrow … Have a drink with you? Now, hadn’t you better leave that kind of talk to your funny man? Can’t you tell whether a man’s guying you or whether you’re being offered the biggest scoop your dull dishrag of a paper ever had? … Well, that’s so; it’s a bobtail scoop—but you can hardly expect me to phone in my name and address … Why? Oh, because I heard you make a specialty of solving mysterious crimes that stump the police … No, that’s not all. I want to tell you that your rotten, lying, penny sheet is of no more use in tracking an intelligent murderer or highwayman than a blind poodle would be … What? … Oh, no, this isn’t a rival newspaper office; you’re getting it straight. I did the Norcross job, and I’ve got the jewels in my suit case at—‘the name of the hotel could not be learned’—you recognize that phrase, don’t you? I thought so. You’ve used it often enough. Kind of rattles you, doesn’t it, to have the mysterious villain call up your great, big, all-powerful organ of right and justice and good government and tell you what a helpless old gasbag you are? … Cut that out; you’re not that big a fool—no, you don’t think I’m a fraud. I can tell it by your voice … Now, listen, and I’ll give you a pointer that will prove it to you. Of course you’ve had this murder case worked over by your staff of bright young blockheads. Half of the second button on old <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Norcross’s nightgown is broken off. I saw it when I took the garnet ring off her finger. I thought it was a ruby … Stop that! it won’t work.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Kernan turned to Woods with a diabolic smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve got him going. He believes me now. He didn’t quite cover the transmitter with his hand when he told somebody to call up Central on another ’phone and get our number. I’ll give him just one more dig, and then we’ll make a ‘getaway.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve got him going. He believes me now. He didn’t quite cover the transmitter with his hand when he told somebody to call up Central on another phone and get our number. I’ll give him just one more dig, and then we’ll make a ‘getaway.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello! … Yes. I’m here yet. You didn’t think I’d run from such a little subsidized, turncoat rag of a newspaper, did you? … Have me inside of forty-eight hours? Say, will you quit being funny? Now, you let grown men alone and attend to your business of hunting up divorce cases and streetcar accidents and printing the filth and scandal that you make your living by. Goodbye, old boy—sorry I haven’t time to call on you. I’d feel perfectly safe in your sanctum asinorum. Tra-la!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s as mad as a cat that’s lost a mouse,” said Kernan, hanging up the receiver and coming out. “And now, Barney, my boy, we’ll go to a show and enjoy ourselves until a reasonable bedtime. Four hours’ sleep for me, and then the westbound.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The two dined in a Broadway restaurant. Kernan was pleased with himself. He spent money like a prince of fiction. And then a weird and gorgeous musical comedy engaged their attention. Afterward there was a late supper in a grillroom, with champagne, and Kernan at the height of his complacency.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“It is my opinion,” said I, “that great human emotions shake up our vocabulary and leave the words best suited to express them on top. A sudden violent grief or loss or disappointment will bring expressions out of an ordinary man as strong and solemn and dramatic as those used in fiction or on the stage to portray those emotions.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s where you fellows are wrong,” said Hollis. “Plain, everyday talk is what goes. Your captain would very likely have kicked the cat, lit a cigar, stirred up a highball, and telephoned for a lawyer, instead of getting off those Robert Mantell pyrotechnics.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Possibly, a little later,” I continued. “But just at the time—just as the blow is delivered, if something Scriptural or theatrical and deep-tongued isn’t wrung from a man in spite of his modern and practical way of speaking, then I’m wrong.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course,” said Hollis, kindly, “you’ve got to whoop her up some degrees for the stage. The audience expects it. When the villain kidnaps little Effie you have to make her mother claw some chunks out of the atmosphere, and scream: “Me chee-ild, me chee-ild!” What she would actually do would be to call up the police by ’phone, ring for some strong tea, and get the little darling’s photo out, ready for the reporters. When you get your villain in a corner—a stage corner—it’s all right for him to clap his hand to his forehead and hiss: “All is lost!” Off the stage he would remark: “This is a conspiracy against me—I refer you to my lawyers.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course,” said Hollis, kindly, “you’ve got to whoop her up some degrees for the stage. The audience expects it. When the villain kidnaps little Effie you have to make her mother claw some chunks out of the atmosphere, and scream: “Me chee-ild, me chee-ild!” What she would actually do would be to call up the police by phone, ring for some strong tea, and get the little darling’s photo out, ready for the reporters. When you get your villain in a corner—a stage corner—it’s all right for him to clap his hand to his forehead and hiss: “All is lost!” Off the stage he would remark: “This is a conspiracy against me—I refer you to my lawyers.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I get no consolation,” said I, gloomily, “from your concession of an accentuated stage treatment. In my play I fondly hoped that I was following life. If people in real life meet great crises in a commonplace way, they should do the same on the stage.”</p>
|
||||
<p>And then we drifted, like two trout, out of our cool pool in the great hotel and began to nibble languidly at the gay flies in the swift current of Broadway. And our question of dramatic art was unsettled.</p>
|
||||
<p>We nibbled at the flies, and avoided the hooks, as wise trout do; but soon the weariness of Manhattan in summer overcame us. Nine stories up, facing the south, was Hollis’s apartment, and we soon stepped into an elevator bound for that cooler haven.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -88,7 +88,7 @@
|
||||
<p>I wondered if any accent on the first word was intended; Mildred was fine at saying things that you had to study out afterward.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” said I. “I hope so. And now to come down to brass tacks.” I thought that rather a vernacularism, if there is such a word, as soon as I had said it; but I didn’t stop to apologize. “You know, of course, that I love you, and that I have been in that idiotic state for a long time. I don’t want any more foolishness about it—that is, I mean I want an answer from you right now. Will you marry me or not? Hold the wire, please. Keep out, Central. Hello, hello! Will you, or will you <em>not</em>?”</p>
|
||||
<p>That was just the uppercut for Reddy Burns’ chin. The answer came back:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, Phil, dear, of course I will! I didn’t know that you—that is, you never said—oh, come up to the house, please—I can’t say what I want to over the ’phone. You are so importunate. But please come up to the house, won’t you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, Phil, dear, of course I will! I didn’t know that you—that is, you never said—oh, come up to the house, please—I can’t say what I want to over the phone. You are so importunate. But please come up to the house, won’t you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Would I?</p>
|
||||
<p>I rang the bell of the Telfair house violently. Some sort of a human came to the door and shooed me into the drawing-room.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, well,” said I to myself, looking at the ceiling, “any one can learn from any one. That was a pretty good philosophy of Mack’s, anyhow. He didn’t take advantage of his experience, but I get the benefit of it. If you want to get into the professional class, you’ve got to—”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">The Pride of the Cities</h2>
|
||||
<p>Said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kipling, “The cities are full of pride, challenging each to each.” Even so.</p>
|
||||
<p>New York was empty. Two hundred thousand of its people were away for the summer. Three million eight hundred thousand remained as caretakers and to pay the bills of the absentees. But the two hundred thousand are an expensive lot.</p>
|
||||
<p>The New Yorker sat at a roof-garden table, ingesting solace through a straw. His panama lay upon a chair. The July audience was scattered among vacant seats as widely as outfielders when the champion batter steps to the plate. Vaudeville happened at intervals. The breeze was cool from the bay; around and above—everywhere except on the stage—were stars. Glimpses were to be had of waiters, always disappearing, like startled chamois. Prudent visitors who had ordered refreshments by ’phone in the morning were now being served. The New Yorker was aware of certain drawbacks to his comfort, but content beamed softly from his rimless eyeglasses. His family was out of town. The drinks were warm; the ballet was suffering from lack of both tune and talcum—but his family would not return until September.</p>
|
||||
<p>The New Yorker sat at a roof-garden table, ingesting solace through a straw. His panama lay upon a chair. The July audience was scattered among vacant seats as widely as outfielders when the champion batter steps to the plate. Vaudeville happened at intervals. The breeze was cool from the bay; around and above—everywhere except on the stage—were stars. Glimpses were to be had of waiters, always disappearing, like startled chamois. Prudent visitors who had ordered refreshments by phone in the morning were now being served. The New Yorker was aware of certain drawbacks to his comfort, but content beamed softly from his rimless eyeglasses. His family was out of town. The drinks were warm; the ballet was suffering from lack of both tune and talcum—but his family would not return until September.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then up into the garden stumbled the man from Topaz City, Nevada. The gloom of the solitary sightseer enwrapped him. Bereft of joy through loneliness, he stalked with a widower’s face through the halls of pleasure. Thirst for human companionship possessed him as he panted in the metropolitan draught. Straight to the New Yorker’s table he steered.</p>
|
||||
<p>The New Yorker, disarmed and made reckless by the lawless atmosphere of a roof garden, decided upon utter abandonment of his life’s traditions. He resolved to shatter with one rash, daredevil, impulsive, hair-brained act the conventions that had hitherto been woven into his existence. Carrying out this radical and precipitous inspiration he nodded slightly to the stranger as he drew nearer the table.</p>
|
||||
<p>The next moment found the man from Topaz City in the list of the New Yorker’s closest friends. He took a chair at the table, he gathered two others for his feet, he tossed his broad-brimmed hat upon a fourth, and told his life’s history to his newfound pard.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I will do the work as usual, then,” said the young lady, “until someone comes to fill the place.” And she went to her desk at once and hung the black turban hat with the gold-green macaw wing in its accustomed place.</p>
|
||||
<p>He who has been denied the spectacle of a busy Manhattan broker during a rush of business is handicapped for the profession of anthropology. The poet sings of the “crowded hour of glorious life.” The broker’s hour is not only crowded, but the minutes and seconds are hanging to all the straps and packing both front and rear platforms.</p>
|
||||
<p>And this day was Harvey Maxwell’s busy day. The ticker began to reel out jerkily its fitful coils of tape, the desk telephone had a chronic attack of buzzing. Men began to throng into the office and call at him over the railing, jovially, sharply, viciously, excitedly. Messenger boys ran in and out with messages and telegrams. The clerks in the office jumped about like sailors during a storm. Even Pitcher’s face relaxed into something resembling animation.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the Exchange there were hurricanes and landslides and snowstorms and glaciers and volcanoes, and those elemental disturbances were reproduced in miniature in the broker’s offices. Maxwell shoved his chair against the wall and transacted business after the manner of a toe dancer. He jumped from ticker to ’phone, from desk to door with the trained agility of a harlequin.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the Exchange there were hurricanes and landslides and snowstorms and glaciers and volcanoes, and those elemental disturbances were reproduced in miniature in the broker’s offices. Maxwell shoved his chair against the wall and transacted business after the manner of a toe dancer. He jumped from ticker to phone, from desk to door with the trained agility of a harlequin.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the midst of this growing and important stress the broker became suddenly aware of a high-rolled fringe of golden hair under a nodding canopy of velvet and ostrich tips, an imitation sealskin sacque and a string of beads as large as hickory nuts, ending near the floor with a silver heart. There was a self-possessed young lady connected with these accessories; and Pitcher was there to construe her.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Lady from the Stenographer’s Agency to see about the position,” said Pitcher.</p>
|
||||
<p>Maxwell turned half around, with his hands full of papers and ticker tape.</p>
|
||||
@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
|
||||
<p>She looked up at him with a smile. A soft pink crept over her cheek, and her eyes were kind and frank. Maxwell leaned one elbow on her desk. He still clutched fluttering papers with both hands and the pen was above his ear.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Miss Leslie,” he began hurriedly, “I have but a moment to spare. I want to say something in that moment. Will you be my wife? I haven’t had time to make love to you in the ordinary way, but I really do love you. Talk quick, please—those fellows are clubbing the stuffing out of Union Pacific.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, what are you talking about?” exclaimed the young lady. She rose to her feet and gazed upon him, round-eyed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t you understand?” said Maxwell, restively. “I want you to marry me. I love you, Miss Leslie. I wanted to tell you, and I snatched a minute when things had slackened up a bit. They’re calling me for the ’phone now. Tell ’em to wait a minute, Pitcher. Won’t you, Miss Leslie?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t you understand?” said Maxwell, restively. “I want you to marry me. I love you, Miss Leslie. I wanted to tell you, and I snatched a minute when things had slackened up a bit. They’re calling me for the phone now. Tell ’em to wait a minute, Pitcher. Won’t you, Miss Leslie?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The stenographer acted very queerly. At first she seemed overcome with amazement; then tears flowed from her wondering eyes; and then she smiled sunnily through them, and one of her arms slid tenderly about the broker’s neck.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I know now,” she said, softly. “It’s this old business that has driven everything else out of your head for the time. I was frightened at first. Don’t you remember, Harvey? We were married last evening at 8 o’clock in the Little Church Around the Corner.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -49,7 +49,7 @@
|
||||
<p>For Billy Jackson was shining down on her, calm and bright and constant through the skylight. There was no world about her. She was sunk in a pit of blackness, with but that small square of pallid light framing the star that she had so whimsically and oh, so ineffectually named. Miss Longnecker must be right; it was Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia, and not Billy Jackson. And yet she could not let it be Gamma.</p>
|
||||
<p>As she lay on her back she tried twice to raise her arm. The third time she got two thin fingers to her lips and blew a kiss out of the black pit to Billy Jackson. Her arm fell back limply.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Goodbye, Billy,” she murmured faintly. “You’re millions of miles away and you won’t even twinkle once. But you kept where I could see you most of the time up there when there wasn’t anything else but darkness to look at, didn’t you? … Millions of miles … Goodbye, Billy Jackson.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Clara, the coloured maid, found the door locked at 10 the next day, and they forced it open. Vinegar, and the slapping of wrists and burnt feathers proving of no avail, someone ran to ’phone for an ambulance.</p>
|
||||
<p>Clara, the coloured maid, found the door locked at 10 the next day, and they forced it open. Vinegar, and the slapping of wrists and burnt feathers proving of no avail, someone ran to phone for an ambulance.</p>
|
||||
<p>In due time it backed up to the door with much gong-clanging, and the capable young medico, in his white linen coat, ready, active, confident, with his smooth face half debonair, half grim, danced up the steps.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ambulance call to 49,” he said briefly. “What’s the trouble?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, yes, doctor,” sniffed <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Parker, as though her trouble that there should be trouble in the house was the greater. “I can’t think what can be the matter with her. Nothing we could do would bring her to. It’s a young woman, a Miss Elsie—yes, a Miss Elsie Leeson. Never before in my house—”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue
Block a user