[OHenryana] Correct quoting, few other OCR errors
This commit is contained in:
vr8ce
parent
f57f27c143
commit
3597169236
@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Strong men they were, and stone rolled from their feet into the valley as each strove to overcome the other.</p>
|
||||
<p>At length one prevailed. He seized his opponent, and raising him high above his head, hurled him into space.</p>
|
||||
<p>The vanquished combatant shot through the air like a stone from a catapult in the direction of the luminous earth.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s three of ’em this week, “said the Man in the Moon as he lit a cigarette and turned back into the house. “Those New York interviewers are going to make me tired if they keep this thing up much longer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s three of ’em this week,” said the Man in the Moon as he lit a cigarette and turned back into the house. “Those New York interviewers are going to make me tired if they keep this thing up much longer.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,9 +8,9 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-3" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2>THREE PARAGRAPHS</h2>
|
||||
<p>“Copy, “yelled the small boy at the door. The sick woman lying on the bed began to move her fingers aimlessly upon the worn counterpane. Her eyes were bright with fever; her face, once beautiful, was thin and pain drawn. She was dying, but neither she nor the man who held her hand and wrote on a paper tablet knew that the end was so near.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Copy,” yelled the small boy at the door. The sick woman lying on the bed began to move her fingers aimlessly upon the worn counterpane. Her eyes were bright with fever; her face, once beautiful, was thin and pain drawn. She was dying, but neither she nor the man who held her hand and wrote on a paper tablet knew that the end was so near.</p>
|
||||
<p>Three paragraphs were lacking to fill the column of humorous matter that the foreman had sent for. The small pay it brought them barely furnished shelter and food. Medicine was lacking but the need for that was nearly over.</p>
|
||||
<p>The woman’s mind was wandering; she spoke quickly and unceasingly, and the man bit his pehcil and stared at the pad of paper, holding her slim, hot hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>The woman’s mind was wandering; she spoke quickly and unceasingly, and the man bit his pencil and stared at the pad of paper, holding her slim, hot hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, Jack; Jack, papa says no, I cannot go with you. Not love you! Jack, do you want to break my heart? Oh, look, look! the fields are like heaven, so filled with flowers. Why have you no ice? I had ice when I was at home. Can’t you give me just a little piece, my throat is burning?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The humourist wrote: “When a man puts a piece of ice down a girl’s back at a picnic, does he give her the cold shoulder?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The woman feverishly put back the loose masses of brown hair from her burning face.</p>
|
||||
@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
|
||||
<p>The humourist wrote: “On the dead square—a cemetery lot.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Copy, sir, “yelled the small boy again. “Forms locked in half an hour.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The man bit his pencil into splinters. The hand he held was growing cooler; surely her fever must be leaving. She was singing now, a little crooning song she might have learned at her mother’s knee, and her fingers had ceased moving.</p>
|
||||
<p>“They told me, “she said weakly and sadly, “that hardships and suffering would come upon me for disobeying my parents and marrying Jack. Oh, dear, my head aches so I can’t think. No, no, the white dress with the lace sleeves, not that black, dreadful thing! Sailing, sailing, sailing, where does this river go ? You are not Jack, you are too cold and stern. What is that red mark on your brow? Come, sister, let’s make some daisy chains and then hurry home, there is a great black cloud above us—Fll be better in the morning. Jack, if you’ll hold my hand tight. Jack, I feel as light as a feather—Fm just floating, floating, right into the cloud and I can’t feel your hand. Oh, I see her now, and there is the old love and tenderness in her face. I must go to her. Jack. Mother, mother!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“They told me,” she said weakly and sadly, “that hardships and suffering would come upon me for disobeying my parents and marrying Jack. Oh, dear, my head aches so I can’t think. No, no, the white dress with the lace sleeves, not that black, dreadful thing! Sailing, sailing, sailing, where does this river go? You are not Jack, you are too cold and stern. What is that red mark on your brow? Come, sister, let’s make some daisy chains and then hurry home, there is a great black cloud above us—I’ll be better in the morning. Jack, if you’ll hold my hand tight. Jack, I feel as light as a feather—Fm just floating, floating, right into the cloud and I can’t feel your hand. Oh, I see her now, and there is the old love and tenderness in her face. I must go to her. Jack. Mother, mother!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The man wrote quickly:</p>
|
||||
<p>“A woman generally likes her husband’s mother-in-law the best of all his relatives.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Then he sprang to the door, dashed the column of copy into the boy’s hand, and moved swiftly to the bed.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -12,28 +12,28 @@
|
||||
<p>The most adventurous boys circled Bulger’s residence at a respectful distance. He was intolerant of visitors, and repelled the curious with belligerent and gruff inhospitality. In return, the report was current that he was of unsound mind, something of a wizard, and a miser with a vast amount of gold buried in or near his hut. The old man worked at odd jobs, such as weeding gardens and whitewashing; and he collected old bones, scrap metal and bottles from alleys and yards.</p>
|
||||
<p>One rainy night when the Salvation Army was holding a slenderly attended meeting in its hall, Bulger had appeared and asked permission to join the ranks. The sergeant in command of the post welcomed the old man with that cheerful lack of prejudice that distinguishes the peaceful militants of his order.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bulger was at once assigned to the position of bass drummer, to his evident, although grimly expressed, joy. Possibly the sergeant, who had the success of his command at heart, perceived that it would be no mean token of successful warfare to have the new recruit thus prominently displayed, representing, as he did, if not a brand from the burning, at least a well-charred and sap-dried chunk.</p>
|
||||
<p>So every night, when the Army marched from its quarters to the street corner where open-air services were held, Bulger stumbled along with his bass dnun behind the sergeant and the corporal, who played “Sweet By and By”and “Only an Armor-Bearer”in unison upon their cornets. And never before in that town was bass dnmi so soundly whacked. Bulger managed to keep time with the cornets upon his instrument, but his feet were always wo-fully unrhythmic. He shuffled and staggered and rocked from side to side like a bear.</p>
|
||||
<p>So every night, when the Army marched from its quarters to the street corner where open-air services were held, Bulger stumbled along with his bass drum behind the sergeant and the corporal, who played “Sweet By and By” and “Only an Armor-Bearer” in unison upon their cornets. And never before in that town was bass drum so soundly whacked. Bulger managed to keep time with the cornets upon his instrument, but his feet were always wo-fully unrhythmic. He shuffled and staggered and rocked from side to side like a bear.</p>
|
||||
<p>Truly, he was not pleasing to the sight. He was a bent, ungainly old man, with a face screwed to one side and wrinkled like a dry prune. The red shirt, which proclaimed his enlistment into the ranks, was a misfit, being the outer husk of a leviathan corporal who had died some time before. This garment hung upon Bulger in folds. His old brown cap was always pulled down over one eye. These and his wabbling gait gave him the appearance of some great simian, captured and imperfectly educated in pedestrian and musical manoeuvres.</p>
|
||||
<p>The thoughtless boys and undeveloped men who gathered about the street services of the Army badgered Bulger incessantly. They called upon him to give oral testimony to his conversion, and criticized the technique and style of his drum performance. But the old man paid no attention whatever to their jeers. He rarely spoke to any one except when, on coming and going, he gruffly saluted his comrades.</p>
|
||||
<p>The sergeant had met many odd characters, and knew how to study them. He allowed the recruit to have his own silent way for a time. Every evening Bulger appeared at the hall, marched up the street with the squad and back again. Then he would place his drum in the comer where it belonged, and sit upon the last bench in the rear until the hall meeting was concluded.</p>
|
||||
<p>But one night the sergeant followed the old man outside, and laid his hand upon his shoulder. “Comrade,” he said, “is it well with you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not yet, sergeant,” said Bulger. “I’m only tryin.’ I’m glad you come outside. I’ve been wantin’ to ask you: Do you believe the Lord would take a man in if he come to Him late like—kind of a last resort, you know? Say a man who’d lost everything—home and property and friends and health. Wouldn’t it look mean to wait till then and try to come?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bless His name—no!‘ “said the sergeant. “Come ye that are heavy laden; that’s what He says. The poorer, the more miserable, the more unfortunate—the greater His love and forgiveness.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bless His name—no!” said the sergeant. “Come ye that are heavy laden; that’s what He says. The poorer, the more miserable, the more unfortunate—the greater His love and forgiveness.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, I’m poor,” said Bulger. “Awful poor and miserable. You know when I can think best, sergeant? It’s when I’m beating the drum. Other times there’s a kind of muddled roarin’ in my head. The drum seems to kind of soothe and calm it. There’s a thing I’m tryin’ to study out, but I ain’t made it yet.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you pray, comrade?”asked the sergeant.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you pray, comrade?” asked the sergeant.</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, I don’t,” said Bulger. “What’d be the use? I know where the hitch is. Don’t it say somewhere for a man to give up his own family or friends and serve the Lord?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“If they stand in his way; not otherwise.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve got no family,” continued the old man, “nor no friends—but one. And that one is what’s driven me to ruin.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Free yourself!”cried the sergeant. “He is no friend, but an enemy who stands between you and salvation.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Free yourself!” cried the sergeant. “He is no friend, but an enemy who stands between you and salvation.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No,” answered Bulger, emphatically, “no enemy. The best friend I ever had.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But you say he’s driven you to ruin!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The old man chuckled dryly: “And keeps me in rags and livin’ on scraps and sleepin’ like a dog in a patched-up kennel. And yet I never had a better friend. You don’t understand, sergeant. You lose all your friends but the best one, and then you’ll know how to hold on to the last one.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you drink, comrade?”asked the sergeant.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you drink, comrade?” asked the sergeant.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not a drop in twenty years,” Bulger replied. The sergeant was puzzled.</p>
|
||||
<p>“If this friend stands between you and your soul’s peace, give him up,” was all he could find to say.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I can’t—now,” said the old man, dropping into a fretful whine. “But you just let me keep on beating the drum, sergeant, and maybe I will some time. I’m a-tryin’. Sometimes I come so near thinkin’ it out that a dozen more licks on the drum would settle it. I get mighty nigh to the point, and then I have to quit. You’ll give me more time, won’t you, sergeant?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All you want, and God bless you, comrade. Pound away until you hit the right note.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Afterward the sergeant would often call to Bulger: “Time, comrade ! Knocked that friend of yours out yet?”The answer was always unsatisfactory.</p>
|
||||
<p>Afterward the sergeant would often call to Bulger: “Time, comrade! Knocked that friend of yours out yet?” The answer was always unsatisfactory.</p>
|
||||
<p>One night at a street corner the sergeant prayed loudly that a certain struggling comrade might be parted from an enemy who was leading him astray under the guise of friendship. Bulger, in sudden and plainly evident alarm, immediately turned his drum over to a fellow volunteer, and shuffled rapidly away down the street. The next night he was back again at his post, without any explanation of his strange behaviour.</p>
|
||||
<p>The sergeant wondered what it all meant, and took occasion to question the old man more closely as to the influence that was retarding the peace his soul seemed to crave. But Bulger carefully avoided particularizing.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s my own fight,” he said. “I’ve got to think it out myself. Nobody else don’t understand.”</p>
|
||||
@ -42,7 +42,7 @@
|
||||
<p>At the end of three weeks of hard freezing a level foot of snow fell. Hunger and cold struck the improvident, and a hundred women, children and old men were gathered into the Army’s quarters to be warmed and fed. Each day the blue-uniformed soldiers slipped in and out of the stores and offices of the town, gathering pennies and dimes and quarters to buy food for the starving. And in and out of private houses the Salvationists went with baskets of food and clothing, while day by day the mercury still crouched among the tens and twenties.</p>
|
||||
<p>Alas! business, that scapegoat, was dull. The dimes and quarters came more reluctantly from tills that jingled not when they were opened. Yet in the big hall of the Army the stove was kept red-hot, and upon the long table, set in the rear, could always be found at least coffee and bread and cheese. The sergeant and the squad fought valiantly. At last the money on hand was all gone, and the daily collections were diminished to a variable sum, inadequate to the needs of the dependents of the Army.</p>
|
||||
<p>Christmas was near at hand. There were fifty children in the hall, and many more outside, to whom that season brought no joy beyond what was brought by the Army. None of these little pensioners had thus far lacked necessary comforts, and they had already begun to chatter of the tree—that one bright vision in the sober monotony of the year. Never since the Army first came had it failed to provide a tree and gifts for the children.</p>
|
||||
<p>The sergeant was troubled. He knew that an announcement of “no tree”would grieve the hearts under those thin cotton dresses and ragged jackets more than would stress of storm or scanty diet; and yet there was not money enough to meet the daily demands for food and fuel.</p>
|
||||
<p>The sergeant was troubled. He knew that an announcement of “no tree” would grieve the hearts under those thin cotton dresses and ragged jackets more than would stress of storm or scanty diet; and yet there was not money enough to meet the daily demands for food and fuel.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the night of December the 20th the sergeant decided to announce that there could be no Christmas tree: it seemed unfair to allow the waxing anticipation of the children to reach too great a height.</p>
|
||||
<p>The evening was colder, and the still deep snow was made deeper by another heavy fall swept upon the wings of a fierce and shrill-voiced northern gale. The sergeant, with sodden boots and reddened countenance, entered the hall at nightfall, and removed his threadbare overcoat. Soon afterward the rest of the faithful squad drifted in, the women heavily shawled, the men stamping their snow-crusted feet loudly upon the steep stairs. After the slender supper of cold meat, beans, bread, and coffee had been finished all joined in a short service of song and prayer, according to their daily habit.</p>
|
||||
<p>Far back in the shadow sat Bulger. For weeks his ears had been deprived of that aid to thought, the booming of the big bass drum. His wrinkled face wore an expression of gloomy perplexity. The Army had been too busy for the regular services and parades. The silent drum, the banners, and the cornets were stored in a little room at the top of the stairway.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -16,15 +16,15 @@
|
||||
<p>Interposed, and irrelevant to the story, was the information that coal mines had been discovered later on the Rankin lands, and now the Galloway Rankins were to be computed among the millionaries.</p>
|
||||
<p>All that was long enough ago for there to be now a daughter, twenty years of age—Miss Annabel Rankin—for whose relief the services of Dr. Prince was petitioned.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then followed, in Mrs. Rankin’s statement, a description of the mysterious, though by her readily accounted for, affliction.</p>
|
||||
<p>It seemed that there was a peculiar difficxilty in the young lady’s powers of locomotion. In walking, a process requiring a coordination and unanimity of the functions—Dr. Prince, said Mrs. Rankin, would understand and admit the non-existence of a necessity for anatomical specification—there persisted a stubborn opposition, a most contrary and counteracting antagonism. In those successively progressive and generally unconsciously automatic movements necessary to proper locomotion, there was a violent lack of harmony and mutuality. To give an instance cited by Mrs. Rankin—if Miss Annabel desired to ascend a stairway, one foot would be easily advanced to the step above, but instead of aiding and abetting its fellow, the other would at once proceed to start downstairs. By a strong physical and mental effort the young lady could walk fairly well for a short distance but suddenly the rebellious entities would become uncontrollable, and she would be compelled to turn undesirable corners, to enter impossible doorways, to dance, shuffle, sidestep and perform other undignified and distressing evolutions.</p>
|
||||
<p>It seemed that there was a peculiar difficulty in the young lady’s powers of locomotion. In walking, a process requiring a coordination and unanimity of the functions—Dr. Prince, said Mrs. Rankin, would understand and admit the non-existence of a necessity for anatomical specification—there persisted a stubborn opposition, a most contrary and counteracting antagonism. In those successively progressive and generally unconsciously automatic movements necessary to proper locomotion, there was a violent lack of harmony and mutuality. To give an instance cited by Mrs. Rankin—if Miss Annabel desired to ascend a stairway, one foot would be easily advanced to the step above, but instead of aiding and abetting its fellow, the other would at once proceed to start downstairs. By a strong physical and mental effort the young lady could walk fairly well for a short distance but suddenly the rebellious entities would become uncontrollable, and she would be compelled to turn undesirable corners, to enter impossible doorways, to dance, shuffle, sidestep and perform other undignified and distressing evolutions.</p>
|
||||
<p>After setting forth these lamentable symptoms, Mrs. Rankin emphatically asserted her belief that the affliction was the result of heredity—of the union between the naturally opposing and contrary Beall and Rankin elements. She believed that the inherited spirit of the ancient feud had taken on physical manifestations, exhibiting them in the person of the unfortunate outcome of the union of opposites. That in Miss Annabel Rankin was warring the imperishable antipathy of the two families. In other words, that one of Miss Rankin’s—that is to say, that when Miss Rankin took a step it was a Beall step, and the next one was dominated by the bequeathed opposition of the Rankins.</p>
|
||||
<p>Doctor Prince received the communication with his usual grave, professional attention, and promised to call the next day at ten to inspect the patient.</p>
|
||||
<p>Promptly at the hour his electric runabout turned into the line of stylish autos and hansoms that wait along the pavements before the most expensive hostelry on American soil.</p>
|
||||
<p>When Miss Annabel Rankin entered the reception parlour of their choice suite of rooms Doctor Prince gave a little blink of surprise through his brilliantly polished nose glasses. The glow of perfect health and the contour of perfect beauty were visible in the face and form of the young lady. But admiration gave way to sympathy when he saw her walk. She entered at a little run, swayed, stepped off helplessly at a sharp tangent, advanced, marked time, backed off, recovered and sidled with a manoeuvring rush to a couch, where she rested, with a look of serious melancholy upon her handsome face.</p>
|
||||
<p>Dr. Prince proceeded with his interrogatories in the delicate, reassuring gentlemanly manner that had brought him so many patrons who placed a value upon those amenities. Miss Annabel answered frankly and sensibly, indeed, for one of her years. The feud theory of Mrs. Rankin was freely discussed. The daughter also believed in it.</p>
|
||||
<p>Soon the physician departed, promising to call again and administer treatment. Then he buzzed down the Avenue and four doors on an asphalted side street to the office of Dn Grumbleton Myers, the great specialist in locomotor ataxia and nerve bilments. The two distinguished physicians shut themselves in a private office, and the great Myers dragged forth a decanter of sherry and a box of Havanas. When the consultation was over both shook their heads.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Fact is,” summed up Myers, “we don’t know anything about anything. Fd say treat symptoms now until something turns up; but there are no symptoms.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The feud diagnosis, then?”suggested Doctor Prince, archly, ridding his cigar of its ash.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Fact is,” summed up Myers, “we don’t know anything about anything. I’d say treat symptoms now until something turns up; but there are no symptoms.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The feud diagnosis, then?” suggested Doctor Prince, archly, ridding his cigar of its ash.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s an interesting case,” said the specialist, noncommittally.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I say, Prince,” called Myers, as his caller was leaving. “Er—sometimes, you know, children that fight and quarrel are shut in separate rooms. Doesn’t it seem a pity, now, that bloomers aren’t in fashion? By separ—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But they aren’t,” smiled Doctor Prince, “and we must be fashionable, at any rate.”</p>
|
||||
@ -43,14 +43,14 @@
|
||||
<p>“Now thread the needle, if you please,” said Professor Adami.</p>
|
||||
<p>Annabel bit off two feet of the black silk. When she came to thread the needle the secret was out. As the hand presenting the thread approached the other holding the needle that arm was jerked violently away. Doctor Prince was first to reduce the painful discovery to words.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Dear Miss and Mrs. Rankin,” he said, in his most musical consolation-baritone, “we have been only partially successful. The affliction, Miss Rankin, has passed from your—that is, the affliction is now in your arms.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, dear!”sighed Annabel, “Fve a Beall arm and a Rankin arm, then. Well, I can use one hand at a time, anyway. People won’t notice it as they did before. Oh, what an annoyance those feuds were, to be sure! It seems to me they should make laws against them.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, dear!” sighed Annabel, “I’ve a Beall arm and a Rankin arm, then. Well, I can use one hand at a time, anyway. People won’t notice it as they did before. Oh, what an annoyance those feuds were, to be sure! It seems to me they should make laws against them.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Doctor Prince looked inquiringly at Professor Adami. That gentleman shook his head. “Another day,” he said. “I prefer not to establish the condition at a lesser interval than two or three days.”</p>
|
||||
<p>So, three days afterward they returned, and the professor replaced Miss Rankin under control. This time there was, apparently, perfect success. She came forth from the trance, and with full muscular powers. She walked the floor with a sure, rythmic step. She played several difiicult selections upon the piano, the hands and arms moving with propriety and with allied ease. Miss Rankin seemed at last to possess a perfectly well-ordered physical being as well as a very grateful mental one.</p>
|
||||
<p>A week afterward there wafted into Doctor Prince’s office a youth, generously gilded. The hallmarks of society were deeply writ upon him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m Ashburton,” he explained; “T. Ripley Ashburton, you know. I’m engaged to Miss Rankin. I understand youVe been training her for some breaks in her gaits—“T. Ripley Ashburton caught himself. “Didn’t mean that, you know—slipped out—been loafing around stables quite a lot. I say, Doctor Prince, I want you to tell me. Candidly, you know. Fm awful spoons on Miss Rankin. We’re to be married in the Fall. You might consider me one of the family, you know. They told me about the treatment you gave her with the—er—medium fellow. That set her up wonderfully, I assure you. She goes freely now, and handles her fore—I mean you know, she’s over all that old trouble. But there’s something else started up thatfs making the track pretty heavy; so I called, don’t you understand.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m Ashburton,” he explained; “T. Ripley Ashburton, you know. I’m engaged to Miss Rankin. I understand you’ve been training her for some breaks in her gaits—” T. Ripley Ashburton caught himself. “Didn’t mean that, you know—slipped out—been loafing around stables quite a lot. I say, Doctor Prince, I want you to tell me. Candidly, you know. I’m awful spoons on Miss Rankin. We’re to be married in the fall. You might consider me one of the family, you know. They told me about the treatment you gave her with the—er—medium fellow. That set her up wonderfully, I assure you. She goes freely now, and handles her fore—I mean you know, she’s over all that old trouble. But there’s something else started up that’s making the track pretty heavy; so I called, don’t you understand.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I had not been advised,” said Doctor Prince, “of any recurrence of Miss Rankin’s indisposition.”</p>
|
||||
<p>T. Ripley Ashburton produced a silver cigarette-case and contemplated it tenderly. Receiving no encouragement, he replaced it in his pocket with a sigh.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not a recurrence,” he said, thoughtfully, “but something different. Possibly Tm the only one in a position to know. Hate to discuss it—reveal Cupid’s secrets, you know—such a jolly low thing to do—but suppose the occasion justifies it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not a recurrence,” he said, thoughtfully, “but something different. Possibly I’m the only one in a position to know. Hate to discuss it—reveal Cupid’s secrets, you know—such a jolly low thing to do—but suppose the occasion justifies it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“If you possess any information or have observed anything,” said Doctor Prince, judicially, “through which Miss Rankin’s condition might be benefited, it is your duty, of course, to apply it in her behalf. I need hardly remind you that such disclosures are held as secrets on professional honour.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I believe I mentioned,” said Mr. Ashburton, his fingers still hovering aroimd the pocket containing his cigarette case, “that Miss Rankin and I are ever so sweet upon each other. She’s a jolly, swell girl, if she did come from the Kentucky mountains. Lately she’s acted awful queerly. She’s awful affectionate one minute, and the next she turns me down like a perfect stranger. Last night I called at the hotel, and she met me at the door of their rooms. Nobody was in sight, and she gave me an awful nice kiss—er—engaged, you know. Doctor Prince—and then she fired away and gave me an awful hard slap in the face. ‘I hate the sight of you,’ she said; ‘how dare you take the liberty!’ ” Mr. Ashburton drew an envelope from his pocket and extracted from it a sheet of note paper of a delicate heliotrope tint. “You might read this note, you know. Can’t say if it’s a medical case, ’pon my honour, but I’m awfully queered, don’t you understand.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Doctor Prince read the following lines:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -12,8 +12,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Metes and bounds have been assigned to it. I know. Realists have prated of “from Fourteenth to Forty-second,” and “as far west as” etc., but the larger meaning of the word remains with me.</p>
|
||||
<p>Confirmation of my interpretation of the famous slaughter-house noun-adjective came to me from Bill Jeremy, a friend out of the West. Bill lives in a town on the edge of the prairie-dog country. At times Bill yearns to maintain the tradition that “ginger shall be hot i’ the mouth.” He brought his last yearning to New York. And it devolved upon me. You know what that means.</p>
|
||||
<p>I took Bill to see the cavity that has been drilled in the city’s tooth, soon to be filled with the new gold subway; and the Eden Musee, and the Flatiron and the crack in the front window-pane of Russell Sage’s house, and the old man that threw the stone that did it when he was a boy—and I asked Bill what he thought of New York.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You may mean well,” said Bill, with gentle reproach, “but youVe got in a groove. You thought I</p>
|
||||
<p>was underwear buyer for the Blue-Front Dry Goods Emporium of Pine Knob, N. C, didn’t you? Or the junior partner of Slowcoach & Green, of Geegeewocomee, State of Goobers, come on for the fall stock of jeans, lingerie, and whetstones? Don’t treat me like a business friend.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You may mean well,” said Bill, with gentle reproach, “but you’ve got in a groove. You thought I was underwear buyer for the Blue-Front Dry Goods Emporium of Pine Knob, N. C, didn’t you? Or the junior partner of Slowcoach & Green, of Geegeewocomee, State of Goobers, come on for the fall stock of jeans, lingerie, and whetstones? Don’t treat me like a business friend.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you suppose the wild, insensate longing I feel for metropolitan gayety is going to be satisfied by waxworks and razor-back architecture? Now you get out the old envelope with the itinerary on it, and cross out the Brooklyn Bridge and the cab that Morgan rides home in and the remaining objects of interest, for I am going it alone. The Tenderloin, well done, is what I shall admire for to see.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Bill Jeremy has a way of doing as he says he will. So I did not urge upon him the bridge, or Carnegie Hall or the great Tomb—wonders that the unselfish New Yorker reserves, unseen, for his friends.</p>
|
||||
<p>That evening Bill descended, unprotected, upon the Tenderloin. The next day he came and put his feet upon my desk and told me about it.</p>
|
||||
@ -22,18 +21,18 @@
|
||||
<p>“Most of the crowd seemed to be goin’ up and I went up. And then they seemed to be goin’ down, and I went down. I asks a man in a light overcoat with a blue jaw leanin’ against a lamppost where was this Tenderloin.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Up that way,” he says, wavin’ his finger-ring.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘How’ll I know it when I get to it?’ I asks.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Yah!’ says he, like he was sick. ‘Easy! Youse’ll see a flax-headed cull stakin’ a doll in a 98-cent shirtwaist to a cheese sandwich and sarsaparilla, and five Salvation Army corporals waitin’ round for de change. Dere’ll be a phonograph playin’ and nine cops gettin’ ready to raid de joint. Datll be it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Yah!’ says he, like he was sick. ‘Easy! Youse’ll see a flax-headed cull stakin’ a doll in a 98-cent shirtwaist to a cheese sandwich and sarsaparilla, and five Salvation Army corporals waitin’ round for de change. Dere’ll be a phonograph playin’ and nine cops gettin’ ready to raid de joint. Dat’ll be it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I asked that fellow where I was then.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Two blocks from de Pump,’ says he.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I goes on uptown, and seein’ nothin’ particular in the line of sinful delight, I strikes ‘crosstown to another avenue. That was Sixth, I reckon. People was still walkin’ up and down, puttin’ first one foot in front and then the other in the irreligious and wicked manner that I suppose has given the Tenderloin its frivolous reputation. Street cars was runnin’ past, most impious and unregenerate; and the profligate Dagoes was splittin’ chestnuts to roast with a wild abandon that reminded me considerably of doings in Paris, France. The dissipated bootblacks was sleepin’ in their chairs, and the roast peanut whistles sounded gay and devilish among the mad throng that leaned ag’inst the awnin’ posts.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I goes on uptown, and seein’ nothin’ particular in the line of sinful delight, I strikes ’crosstown to another avenue. That was Sixth, I reckon. People was still walkin’ up and down, puttin’ first one foot in front and then the other in the irreligious and wicked manner that I suppose has given the Tenderloin its frivolous reputation. Street cars was runnin’ past, most impious and unregenerate; and the profligate Dagoes was splittin’ chestnuts to roast with a wild abandon that reminded me considerably of doings in Paris, France. The dissipated bootblacks was sleepin’ in their chairs, and the roast peanut whistles sounded gay and devilish among the mad throng that leaned ag’inst the awnin’ posts.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A fellow with a high hat and brass buttons gets down off the top of his covered sulky, and says to me, ‘Keb, sir?’</p>
|
||||
<p>‘ “Whereabouts is this Tenderloin, Colonel?’ I asks.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You’re right in the centre of it, boss,’ says he. ‘You are standin’ right now on the wickedest corner in New York. Not ten feet from here a push-cart man had his pocket picked last night; and if you’re here for a week I can show you at least two moonlight trolley parties go by on the New Amsterdam line.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Look here,’ says I, ‘I’m out for a razoo. I’ve got nine iron medallions of Liberty wearin’ holes in my pocket linin’. I want to split this Tenderloin in two if there’s anything in it. Now put me on to something that’s real degraded and boisterous and sizzling with cultured and uproarious sin. Something in the way of metropolitan vice that I can be proud of when I go back home. Ain’t you got any civic pride about you?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘This sulky driver scratched the heel of his chin.</p>
|
||||
<p>“This sulky driver scratched the heel of his chin.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Just now, boss,’ says he, ‘everything’s layin’ low. There’s a tip out that Jerome’s cigarettes ain’t agreein’ with him. If it was any other time—say,’ says he, like an idea struck him, ‘how’d you like to take in the all-night restaurants? Lots of electric lights, boss, and people and fun. Sometimes they laugh right out loud. Out-of-town visitors mostly visit our restaurants.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Get away,’ says I, ‘I’m beginnin’ to think your old Tenderloin is nothin’ but the butcher’s article. A little spice and infamy and audible riot is what I am after. If you can’t furnish it go back and climb on your demi-barouche. We have restaurants out West’ I tells him, ‘where we eat grub attended by artificial light and laughter. Where is the boasted badness of your unjustly vituperated city?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The fellow rubs his chin again. ‘Deed if I know, boss,’ says he, ‘right now. You see Jerome’—and then he buds out with another idea. ‘Tell you what,’ says he, ‘be the very thing! You jump in my keb and I’ll drive you over to Brooklyn. My aunt’s giving a euchre party to-night,’ says he, ‘because Miles O’Reilly is busy, watchin’ the natatorivun—somebody tipped him off it was a pool-room. Can you play euchre? The keb’ll be 13.50 an hour. Jump right in, boss.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The fellow rubs his chin again. ‘Deed if I know, boss,’ says he, ‘right now. You see Jerome’—and then he buds out with another idea. ‘Tell you what,’ says he, ‘be the very thing! You jump in my keb and I’ll drive you over to Brooklyn. My aunt’s giving a euchre party to-night,’ says he, ‘because Miles O’Reilly is busy, watchin’ the natatorivun—somebody tipped him off it was a pool-room. Can you play euchre? The keb’ll be $3.50 an hour. Jump right in, boss.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“That was the best I could do on the wickedest corner in New York. So I walks over where it’s more righteous, hopin’ there might be somethin’ doin’ among the Pharisees. Everything, so far as I could see, was as free from guile as a hammock at a Chautauqua picnic. The people just walked up and down, speakin’ of chrysanthemvun shows and oratorios, and enjoyin’ the misbegotten reputation of bein’ the wickedest rakes on the continent.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s too bad. Bill.” I said, “that you were disappointed in the Tenderloin. Didn’t you have a chance to spend any of your money?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, yes,” said Bill. “I managed to drop one dollar over on the edge of the sinful district. I was goin’ along down a boulevard when I hears an awful hollerin’ and fussin’ that sounded good—it reminded me of a real enjoyable rough-house out West. Some fellow was quarrelin’ at the top of his voice, usin’ cuss words, and callin’ down all kinds of damnation about somethin’.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -18,12 +18,11 @@
|
||||
<p>“I’ve heard of this fellow Conlan before. Why does he interfere? Why does he stand in the way? Is there anything between him and Katie? Does Katie care for him?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mrs. Flynn gave a sigh, like a pufF of a locomotive, and a flap upon the washboard with a sodden garment that sent Holcombe, well splashed, six feet away.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ask me no questions about what’s in a gyurl’s heart and I’ll tell ye no lies. Her own mither can’t tell any more than yerself, Mr. Holcombe.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Holcombe stepped inside the cottage. Katie Flynn, with rolled-up sleeves, was ironing a dress of flounced muslin. Criticism of Holcombe’s deviation from his own sphere to this star of lower orbit must have waned at the sight of the girl. Her beauty was of the most solvent and convincing sort. Dusky Irish eyes, one great braid of jetty, shining hair, a crimson mouth, dimpling and shaping itself to every mood of its owner,</p>
|
||||
<p>a figure strong and gracefiil, seemingly fiill of imperishable life and action—Katie Flynn was one to be sought after and striven for.</p>
|
||||
<p>Holcombe stepped inside the cottage. Katie Flynn, with rolled-up sleeves, was ironing a dress of flounced muslin. Criticism of Holcombe’s deviation from his own sphere to this star of lower orbit must have waned at the sight of the girl. Her beauty was of the most solvent and convincing sort. Dusky Irish eyes, one great braid of jetty, shining hair, a crimson mouth, dimpling and shaping itself to every mood of its owner, a figure strong and graceful, seemingly fiill of imperishable life and action—Katie Flynn was one to be sought after and striven for.</p>
|
||||
<p>Holcombe went and stood by her side as she ironed, and watched the lithe play of muscles rolling beneath the satiny skin of her rounded forearms.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Katie,” he said, his voice concealing a certain anxiety beneath a wooing tenderness, “I have come for my answer. It isn’t necessary to repeat what we have talked over so often, but you know how anxious I am to have you. You know my circumstances and position, and that you will have every comfort and every privilege that you could ask for. Say ‘Yes,’ Katie, and I’ll be the luckiest man in this town to-day.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Kate set her iron down with a metallic click, and leaned her elbows upon the ironing board. Her great blue-black eyes went, in their Irish way, from sparkling fun to thoughtful melancholy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, Mr. Holcombe, I don’t know what to say. I know you’d be kind to me, and give me the best home I could ever expect. I’d like to say ‘yes’—indeed I would. Vd about decided to tell you so, but there’s Danny—he objects so.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, Mr. Holcombe, I don’t know what to say. I know you’d be kind to me, and give me the best home I could ever expect. I’d like to say ‘yes’—indeed I would. I’d about decided to tell you so, but there’s Danny—he objects so.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Danny again! Holcombe strode up and down the room impatiently frowning.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Who is this fellow Conlan, Katie?” he asked. “Every time I nearly get your consent he comes between us. Does he want you to live always in this cottage for the convenience of his mightiness? Why do you listen to him ?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He wants me,” said Katie, in the voice of a small, spoiled child.</p>
|
||||
@ -32,7 +31,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Oh, has he! Well, that doesn’t frighten me, Katie. In fact, I am not sure but what I’d tackle him a few rounds myself, with you for the prize; although I’m somewhat rusty with the gloves.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Whist! there he comes now,” exclaimed Katie, her eyes widening a little with apprehension.</p>
|
||||
<p>Holcombe looked out the door and saw a young man coming up from the gate. He walked with an easy swagger. His face was smooth and truculent, but not bad. He wore a cap pulled down to one eye. He walked inside the house and stopped at the door of the room in which stood his rival and the bone of contention.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’re after my girl again, are you?”be grumbled, huskily and ominously. “I don’t like it, do you see? Fve told her so, and I tell you so. She stays here. For ten cents I’d knock your block off. Do you see?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’re after my girl again, are you?” be grumbled, huskily and ominously. “I don’t like it, do you see? I’ve told her so, and I tell you so. She stays here. For ten cents I’d knock your block off. Do you see?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now Mr. Conlan,” began Holcombe, striving to avoid the argumentum ad hominemy “listen to reason. It is only fair to let Katie choose for herself. Is it quite the square thing to try to prevent her from doing what she prefers to do? If it had not been for your interference I would have had her long ago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“For five cents,” pursued the unmoved Mr. Conlan, lowering his terms, “I’d knock your block off.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Into Holcombe’s eye there came the light of desperate resolve. He saw but one way to clear the obstacle from his path.</p>
|
||||
@ -57,7 +56,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Holcombe’s face wore an ecstatic look. He was fingering a little scratch on his chin with one hand. He leaned his head towards Weatherly’s ear.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say, Bob, do you remember that Irish girl, Katie Flynn, that was with the Spaffords so long a time?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve heard of her,” said Weatherly. “They say she stayed a year with them without a single day off. But I don’t believe any fairy story like that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Twas a fact. Well, I engaged her to-day for a cook. She’s going out to the house to-morrow.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Twas a fact. Well, I engaged her to-day for a cook. She’s going out to the house to-morrow.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Confound you for a lucky dog,” shouted Weatherly, with envy in his tones and his heart, “and you live four blocks further out than we do!”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue
Block a user