Proofreading corrections
This commit is contained in:
vr8ce
parent
0fa4753f3b
commit
a3eb0ed612
@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
|
||||
<p>A slim, wiry youth in high-heeled boots came down to the water’s edge. His face was boyish, but with a premature severity that hinted at a man’s experience. His complexion was naturally dark; and the sun and wind of an outdoor life had burned it to a coffee brown. His hair was as black and straight as an Indian’s; his face had not yet been upturned to the humiliation of a razor; his eyes were a cold and steady blue. He carried his left arm somewhat away from his body, for pearl-handled .45s are frowned upon by town marshals, and are a little bulky when placed in the left armhole of one’s vest. He looked beyond Captain Boone at the gulf with the impersonal and expressionless dignity of a Chinese emperor.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thinkin’ of buyin’ that’ar gulf, buddy?” asked the captain, made sarcastic by his narrow escape from a tobaccoless voyage.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, no,” said the Kid gently, “I reckon not. I never saw it before. I was just looking at it. Not thinking of selling it, are you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not this trip,” said the captain. “I’ll send it to you C.O.D. when I get back to Buenas Tierras. Here comes that capstanfooted lubber with the chewin’. I ought to’ve weighed anchor an hour ago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not this trip,” said the captain. “I’ll send it to you <abbr class="initialism">COD</abbr> when I get back to Buenas Tierras. Here comes that capstanfooted lubber with the chewin’. I ought to’ve weighed anchor an hour ago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is that your ship out there?” asked the Kid.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, yes,” answered the captain, “if you want to call a schooner a ship, and I don’t mind lyin’. But you better say Miller and Gonzales, owners, and ordinary plain, Billy-be-damned old Samuel K. Boone, skipper.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Where are you going to?” asked the refugee.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,8 +9,7 @@
|
||||
<section id="a-good-story-spoiled" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Good Story Spoiled</h2>
|
||||
<p>Few nights ago in a rather tough saloon in a little town on the Central Railroad, a big, strapping desperado, who had an unenviable reputation as a bad man generally, walked up to the bar and in a loud voice ordered everybody in the saloon to walk up and take a drink. The crowd moved quickly to the bar at his invitation, as the man was half drunk and was undoubtedly dangerous when in that condition.</p>
|
||||
<p>One man alone failed to accept the invitation. He was a rather small man, neatly dressed, who sat calmly in his chair, gazing idly at the crowd. A student of physiognomy would have been attracted by the expression of his face, which was one of cool determination and force of will. His jaw was square and firm, and his eye gray and</p>
|
||||
<p>steady, with that peculiar gray glint in the iris that presages more danger than any other kind of optic.</p>
|
||||
<p>One man alone failed to accept the invitation. He was a rather small man, neatly dressed, who sat calmly in his chair, gazing idly at the crowd. A student of physiognomy would have been attracted by the expression of his face, which was one of cool determination and force of will. His jaw was square and firm, and his eye gray and steady, with that peculiar gray glint in the iris that presages more danger than any other kind of optic.</p>
|
||||
<p>The bully looked around and saw that someone had declined his invitation.</p>
|
||||
<p>He repeated it in a louder voice.</p>
|
||||
<p>The small man rose to his feet and walked coolly toward the desperado.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
|
||||
<p>It is time to call a halt upon the persistent spreaders of the alleged joke that a woman can not keep a secret. No baser ingratitude has been shown by man toward the fair sex than the promulgation of this false report. Whenever a would-be humorous man makes use of this antiquated chestnut which his fellow men feel in duty bound to applaud, the face of the woman takes on a strange, inscrutable, pitying smile that few men ever read.</p>
|
||||
<p>The truth is that it is only woman who can keep a secret. Only a divine intelligence can understand the marvelous power with which ninety-nine married women out of a hundred successfully hide from the rest of the world the secret that they have bound themselves to something unworthy of the pure and sacrificing love they have given them. She may whisper to her neighbor that <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jones has turned her old silk dress twice, but if she has in her breast anything affecting one she loves, the gods themselves could not drag it from her.</p>
|
||||
<p>Weak man looks into the wine cup and behold, he babbles his innermost thoughts to any gaping bystander; woman can babble of the weather, and gaze with infantine eyes into the orbs of the wiliest diplomat, while holding easily in her breast the heaviest secrets of state.</p>
|
||||
<p>Adam was the original blab; the first telltale, and we are not proud of him. With the dreamy, appealing eyes of Eve upon him—she who was created for his comfort and pleasure—even as she stood by his side, loving and fresh and fair as a spring moon, the wretched cad said, “The woman gave me and I did eat. This reprehensible act in our distinguished forefather can not be excused by any gentleman who knows what is due to a lady.</p>
|
||||
<p>Adam was the original blab; the first telltale, and we are not proud of him. With the dreamy, appealing eyes of Eve upon him—she who was created for his comfort and pleasure—even as she stood by his side, loving and fresh and fair as a spring moon, the wretched cad said, “The woman gave me and I did eat.” This reprehensible act in our distinguished forefather can not be excused by any gentleman who knows what is due to a lady.</p>
|
||||
<p>Adam’s conduct would have caused his name to be stricken from the list of every decent club in the country. And since that day, woman has stood by man, faithful, true, and ready to give up all for his sake. She hides his puny peccadilloes from the world, she glosses over his wretched misdemeanors, and she keeps silent when a word would pierce his inflated greatness and leave him a shriveled and shrunken rag.</p>
|
||||
<p>And man says that woman can not keep a secret!</p>
|
||||
<p>Let him be thankful that she can, or his littleness would be proclaimed from the housetops.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,9 +8,9 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="book-reviews" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Book Reviews</h2>
|
||||
<p>Unnabridged Dictionary by Noah U Webster, <abbr>L. L. D. F. R. S. X. Y. Z.</abbr></p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Unnabridged Dictionary by Noah Webster</i>, <abbr>L. L. D. F. R. S. X. Y. Z.</abbr></p>
|
||||
<p>We find on our table quite an exhaustive treatise on various subjects, written in <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Webster’s well-known, lucid, and piquant style. There is not a dull line between the covers of the book. The range of subjects is wide, and the treatment light and easy without being flippant. A valuable feature of the work is the arranging of the articles in alphabetical order, thus facilitating the finding of any particular word desired. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Webster’s vocabulary is large, and he always uses the right word in the right place. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Webster’s work is thorough and we predict that he will be heard from again.</p>
|
||||
<p>Houston’s City Directory, by Morrison and Fourmy.</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Houston’s City Directory</i>, by Morrison and Fourmy.</p>
|
||||
<p>This new book has the decided merit of being non-sensational. In these days of erratic and ultra-imaginative literature of the modern morbid self-analytical school it is a relief to peruse a book with so little straining after effect, so well balanced, and so pure in sentiment. It is a book that a man can place in the hands of the most innocent member of his family with the utmost confidence. Its material is healthy, and its literary style excellent, as it adheres to the methods used with such thrilling effect by <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Webster in his famous dictionary, viz: alphabetical arrangement.</p>
|
||||
<p>We venture to assert that no one can carefully and conscientiously read this little volume without being a better man, or lady, as circumstances over which they have no control may indicate.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -28,9 +28,9 @@
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>Boyd read it twice.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s either a cipher or a sunstroke,” said he.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ever hear of anything like a code in the office—a secret code?” asked the <abbr>m. e.</abbr>, who had held his desk for only two years. Managing editors come and go.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ever hear of anything like a code in the office—a secret code?” asked the <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr>, who had held his desk for only two years. Managing editors come and go.</p>
|
||||
<p>“None except the vernacular that the lady specials write in,” said Boyd. “Couldn’t be an acrostic, could it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought of that,” said the <abbr>m. e.</abbr>, “but the beginning letters contain only four vowels. It must be a code of some sort.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought of that,” said the <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr>, “but the beginning letters contain only four vowels. It must be a code of some sort.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Try em in groups,” suggested Boyd. “Let’s see—‘Rash witching goes’—not with me it doesn’t. ‘Muffled rumour mine’—must have an underground wire. ‘Dark silent unfortunate richmond’—no reason why he should knock that town so hard. ‘Existing great hotly’—no it doesn’t pan out. I’ll call Scott.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The city editor came in a hurry, and tried his luck. A city editor must know something about everything; so Scott knew a little about cipher-writing.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It may be what is called an inverted alphabet cipher,” said he. “I’ll try that. ‘R’ seems to be the oftenest used initial letter, with the exception of ‘m.’ Assuming ‘r’ to mean ‘e’, the most frequently used vowel, we transpose the letters—so.”</p>
|
||||
@ -38,29 +38,29 @@
|
||||
<p>“Great!” cried Boyd. “It’s a charade. My first is a Russian general. Go on, Scott.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, that won’t work,” said the city editor. “It’s undoubtedly a code. It’s impossible to read it without the key. Has the office ever used a cipher code?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Just what I was asking,” said the m.e. “Hustle everybody up that ought to know. We must get at it some way. Calloway has evidently got hold of something big, and the censor has put the screws on, or he wouldn’t have cabled in a lot of chop suey like this.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Throughout the office of the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Enterprise</i> a dragnet was sent, hauling in such members of the staff as would be likely to know of a code, past or present, by reason of their wisdom, information, natural intelligence, or length of servitude. They got together in a group in the city room, with the <abbr>m. e.</abbr> in the centre. No one had heard of a code. All began to explain to the head investigator that newspapers never use a code, anyhow—that is, a cipher code. Of course the Associated Press stuff is a sort of code—an abbreviation, rather—but—</p>
|
||||
<p>The <abbr>m. e.</abbr> knew all that, and said so. He asked each man how long he had worked on the paper. Not one of them had drawn pay from an <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Enterprise</i> envelope for longer than six years. Calloway had been on the paper twelve years.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Try old Heffelbauer,” said the <abbr>m. e.</abbr> “He was here when Park Row was a potato patch.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Throughout the office of the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Enterprise</i> a dragnet was sent, hauling in such members of the staff as would be likely to know of a code, past or present, by reason of their wisdom, information, natural intelligence, or length of servitude. They got together in a group in the city room, with the <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr> in the centre. No one had heard of a code. All began to explain to the head investigator that newspapers never use a code, anyhow—that is, a cipher code. Of course the Associated Press stuff is a sort of code—an abbreviation, rather—but—</p>
|
||||
<p>The <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr> knew all that, and said so. He asked each man how long he had worked on the paper. Not one of them had drawn pay from an <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Enterprise</i> envelope for longer than six years. Calloway had been on the paper twelve years.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Try old Heffelbauer,” said the <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr> “He was here when Park Row was a potato patch.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Heffelbauer was an institution. He was half janitor, half handyman about the office, and half watchman—thus becoming the peer of thirteen and one-half tailors. Sent for, he came, radiating his nationality.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Heffelbauer,” said the <abbr>m. e.</abbr>, “did you ever hear of a code belonging to the office a long time ago—a private code? You know what a code is, don’t you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Heffelbauer,” said the <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr>, “did you ever hear of a code belonging to the office a long time ago—a private code? You know what a code is, don’t you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yah,” said Heffelbauer. “Sure I know vat a code is. Yah, apout dwelf or fifteen year ago der office had a code. Der reborters in der city-room haf it here.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ah!” said the <abbr>m. e.</abbr> “We’re getting on the trail now. Where was it kept, Heffelbauer? What do you know about it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ah!” said the <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr> “We’re getting on the trail now. Where was it kept, Heffelbauer? What do you know about it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Somedimes,” said the retainer, “dey keep it in der little room behind der library room.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Can you find it?” asked the <abbr>m. e.</abbr> eagerly. “Do you know where it is?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Can you find it?” asked the <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr> eagerly. “Do you know where it is?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mein Gott!” said Heffelbauer. “How long you dink a code live? Der reborters call him a maskeet. But von day he butt mit his head der editor, und—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, he’s talking about a goat,” said Boyd. “Get out, Heffelbauer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Again discomfited, the concerted wit and resource of the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Enterprise</i> huddled around Calloway’s puzzle, considering its mysterious words in vain.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then Vesey came in.</p>
|
||||
<p>Vesey was the youngest reporter. He had a thirty-two-inch chest and wore a number fourteen collar; but his bright Scotch plaid suit gave him presence and conferred no obscurity upon his whereabouts. He wore his hat in such a position that people followed him about to see him take it off, convinced that it must be hung upon a peg driven into the back of his head. He was never without an immense, knotted, hardwood cane with a German-silver tip on its crooked handle. Vesey was the best photograph hustler in the office. Scott said it was because no living human being could resist the personal triumph it was to hand his picture over to Vesey. Vesey always wrote his own news stories, except the big ones, which were sent to the rewrite men. Add to this fact that among all the inhabitants, temples, and groves of the earth nothing existed that could abash Vesey, and his dim sketch is concluded.</p>
|
||||
<p>Vesey butted into the circle of cipher readers very much as Heffelbauer’s “code” would have done, and asked what was up. Someone explained, with the touch of half-familiar condescension that they always used toward him. Vesey reached out and took the cablegram from the <abbr>m. e.</abbr>’s hand. Under the protection of some special Providence, he was always doing appalling things like that, and coming, off unscathed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Vesey butted into the circle of cipher readers very much as Heffelbauer’s “code” would have done, and asked what was up. Someone explained, with the touch of half-familiar condescension that they always used toward him. Vesey reached out and took the cablegram from the <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr>’s hand. Under the protection of some special Providence, he was always doing appalling things like that, and coming, off unscathed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s a code,” said Vesey. “Anybody got the key?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The office has no code,” said Boyd, reaching for the message. Vesey held to it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then old Calloway expects us to read it, anyhow,” said he. “He’s up a tree, or something, and he’s made this up so as to get it by the censor. It’s up to us. Gee! I wish they had sent me, too. Say—we can’t afford to fall down on our end of it. ‘Foregone, preconcerted rash, witching’—h’m.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Vesey sat down on a table corner and began to whistle softly, frowning at the cablegram.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Let’s have it, please,” said the <abbr>m. e.</abbr> “We’ve got to get to work on it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Let’s have it, please,” said the <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr> “We’ve got to get to work on it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I believe I’ve got a line on it,” said Vesey. “Give me ten minutes.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He walked to his desk, threw his hat into a wastebasket, spread out flat on his chest like a gorgeous lizard, and started his pencil going. The wit and wisdom of the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Enterprise</i> remained in a loose group, and smiled at one another, nodding their heads toward Vesey. Then they began to exchange their theories about the cipher.</p>
|
||||
<p>It took Vesey exactly fifteen minutes. He brought to the <abbr>m. e.</abbr> a pad with the code-key written on it.</p>
|
||||
<p>It took Vesey exactly fifteen minutes. He brought to the <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr> a pad with the code-key written on it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I felt the swing of it as soon as I saw it,” said Vesey. “Hurrah for old Calloway! He’s done the Japs and every paper in town that prints literature instead of news. Take a look at that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus had Vesey set forth the reading of the code:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
@ -118,7 +118,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Concluded arrangement to act at hour of midnight without saying. Report hath it that a large body of cavalry and an overwhelming force of infantry will be thrown into the field. Conditions white. Way contested by only a small force. Question the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Times</i> description. Its correspondent is unaware of the facts.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“Great stuff!” cried Boyd excitedly. “Kuroki crosses the Yalu tonight and attacks. Oh, we won’t do a thing to the sheets that make up with Addison’s essays, real estate transfers, and bowling scores!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Vesey,” said the <abbr>m. e.</abbr>, with his jollying-which-you-should-regard-as-a-favour manner, “you have cast a serious reflection upon the literary standards of the paper that employs you. You have also assisted materially in giving us the biggest ‘beat’ of the year. I will let you know in a day or two whether you are to be discharged or retained at a larger salary. Somebody send Ames to me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Vesey,” said the <abbr class="initialism">ME</abbr>, with his jollying-which-you-should-regard-as-a-favour manner, “you have cast a serious reflection upon the literary standards of the paper that employs you. You have also assisted materially in giving us the biggest ‘beat’ of the year. I will let you know in a day or two whether you are to be discharged or retained at a larger salary. Somebody send Ames to me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ames was the kingpin, the snowy-petalled Marguerite, the star-bright looloo of the rewrite men. He saw attempted murder in the pains of green-apple colic, cyclones in the summer zephyr, lost children in every top-spinning urchin, an uprising of the downtrodden masses in every hurling of a derelict potato at a passing automobile. When not rewriting, Ames sat on the porch of his Brooklyn villa playing checkers with his ten-year-old son.</p>
|
||||
<p>Ames and the “war editor” shut themselves in a room. There was a map in there stuck full of little pins that represented armies and divisions. Their fingers had been itching for days to move those pins along the crooked line of the Yalu. They did so now; and in words of fire Ames translated Calloway’s brief message into a front page masterpiece that set the world talking. He told of the secret councils of the Japanese officers; gave Kuroki’s flaming speeches in full; counted the cavalry and infantry to a man and a horse; described the quick and silent building, of the bridge at Suikauchen, across which the Mikado’s legions were hurled upon the surprised Zassulitch, whose troops were widely scattered along the river. And the battle!—well, you know what Ames can do with a battle if you give him just one smell of smoke for a foundation. And in the same story, with seemingly supernatural knowledge, he gleefully scored the most profound and ponderous paper in England for the false and misleading account of the intended movements of the Japanese First Army printed in its issue of <em>the same date</em>.</p>
|
||||
<p>Only one error was made; and that was the fault of the cable operator at Wi-ju. Calloway pointed it out after he came back. The word “great” in his code should have been “gage,” and its complemental words “of battle.” But it went to Ames “conditions white,” and of course he took that to mean snow. His description of the Japanese army struggling through the snowstorm, blinded by the whirling flakes, was thrillingly vivid. The artists turned out some effective illustrations that made a hit as pictures of the artillery dragging their guns through the drifts. But, as the attack was made on the first day of May, “conditions white” excited some amusement. But it in made no difference to the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Enterprise</i>, anyway.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
|
||||
<p>In May Cherokee packed his burro and turned its thoughtful, mouse-eoloured forehead to the north. Many citizens escorted him to the undefined limits of Yellowhammer and bestowed upon him shouts of commendation and farewells. Five pocket flasks without an air bubble between contents and cork were forced upon him; and he was bidden to consider Yellowhammer in perpetual commission for his bed, bacon and eggs, and hot water for shaving in the event that luck did not see fit to warm her hands by his campfire in the Mariposas.</p>
|
||||
<p>The name of the father of Yellowhammer was given him by the gold hunters in accordance with their popular system of nomenclature. It was not necessary for a citizen to exhibit his baptismal certificate in order to acquire a cognomen. A man’s name was his personal property. For convenience in calling him up to the bar and in designating him among other blue-shirted bipeds, a temporary appellation, title, or epithet was conferred upon him by the public. Personal peculiarities formed the source of the majority of such informal baptisms. Many were easily dubbed geographically from the regions from which they confessed to have hailed. Some announced themselves to be “Thompsons,” and “Adamses,” and the like, with a brazenness and loudness that cast a cloud upon their titles. A few vaingloriously and shamelessly uncovered their proper and indisputable names. This was held to be unduly arrogant, and did not win popularity. One man who said he was Chesterton L. C. Belmont, and proved it by letters, was given till sundown to leave the town. Such names as “Shorty,” “Bowlegs,” “Texas,” “Lazy Bill,” “Thirsty Rogers,” “Limping Riley,” “The Judge,” and “California Ed” were in favour. Cherokee derived his title from the fact that he claimed to have lived for a time with that tribe in the Indian Nation.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the twentieth day of December Baldy, the mail rider, brought Yellowhammer a piece of news.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What do I see in Albuquerque,” said Baldy, to the patrons of the bar, “but Cherokee all embellished and festooned up like the Czar of Turkey, and lavishin’ money in bulk. Him and me seen the elephant and the owl, and we had specimens of this seidlitz powder wine; and Cherokee he audits all the bills, C.O.D. His pockets looked like a pool table’s after a fifteen-ball run.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What do I see in Albuquerque,” said Baldy, to the patrons of the bar, “but Cherokee all embellished and festooned up like the Czar of Turkey, and lavishin’ money in bulk. Him and me seen the elephant and the owl, and we had specimens of this seidlitz powder wine; and Cherokee he audits all the bills, <abbr class="initialism">COD</abbr>. His pockets looked like a pool table’s after a fifteen-ball run.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Cherokee must have struck pay ore,” remarked California Ed. “Well, he’s white. I’m much obliged to him for his success.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Seems like Cherokee would ramble down to Yellowhammer and see his friends,” said another, slightly aggrieved. “But that’s the way. Prosperity is the finest cure there is for lost forgetfulness.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You wait,” said Baldy; “I’m comin’ to that. Cherokee strikes a three-eoot vein up in the Mariposas that assays a trip to Europe to the ton, and he closes it out to a syndicate outfit for a hundred thousand hasty dollars in cash. Then he buys himself a baby sealskin overcoat and a red sleigh, and what do you think he takes it in his head to do next?”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,8 +8,8 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="her-ruse" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Her Ruse</h2>
|
||||
<p>How do I keep John home of nights?” asked a Houston lady of a friend the other day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, I struck a plan once by a sudden inspiration, and it worked very nicely. John had been in a habit of going down town every night after supper and staying until ten or eleven o’clock. One night he left as usual, and after going three or four blocks he found he had forgotten his umbrella and came back for it. I was in the sitting room reading, and he slipped in the room on his tiptoes and came up behind me and put his hands over my eyes. John expected me to be very much startled, I suppose, but I only said softly, Is that you, Tom?’ John hasn’t been down town at night since.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“How do I keep John home of nights?” asked a Houston lady of a friend the other day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, I struck a plan once by a sudden inspiration, and it worked very nicely. John had been in a habit of going down town every night after supper and staying until ten or eleven o’clock. One night he left as usual, and after going three or four blocks he found he had forgotten his umbrella and came back for it. I was in the sitting room reading, and he slipped in the room on his tiptoes and came up behind me and put his hands over my eyes. John expected me to be very much startled, I suppose, but I only said softly, ‘Is that you, Tom?’ John hasn’t been down town at night since.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Holding Up a Train</h2>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="epigraph">
|
||||
<p><b>Note.</b> The man who told me these things was for several years an outlaw in the Southwest and a follower of the pursuit he so frankly describes. His description of the modus operandi should prove interesting, his counsel of value to the potential passenger in some future “holdup,” while his estimate of the pleasures of train robbing will hardly induce anyone to adopt it as a profession. I give the story in almost exactly his own words.</p>
|
||||
<cite><span class="signature"><abbr>O. H.</abbr></span></cite>
|
||||
<cite><span class="signature"><abbr class="name">O. H.</abbr></span></cite>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<p>Most people would say, if their opinion was asked for, that holding up a train would be a hard job. Well, it isn’t; it’s easy. I have contributed some to the uneasiness of railroads and the insomnia of express companies, and the most trouble I ever had about a holdup was in being swindled by unscrupulous people while spending the money I got. The danger wasn’t anything to speak of, and we didn’t mind the trouble.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,9 +8,9 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="lucky-either-way" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Lucky Either Way</h2>
|
||||
<p>The Memphis Commercial-Appeal, in comA menting on errors in grammar made by magazines, takes exception to an error in construction occurring in Gode/s Magazine in which, in J. H. Connelly’s story entitled “<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pettigrew’s Bad Dog,” a character is made to say: “You will be lucky if you escape with only marrying one.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Memphis Commercial-Appeal, in commenting on errors in grammar made by magazines, takes exception to an error in construction occurring in Gode’s Magazine in which, in <abbr class="name">J. H.</abbr> Connelly’s story entitled “<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pettigrew’s Bad Dog,” a character is made to say: “You will be lucky if you escape with only marrying one.”</p>
|
||||
<p>A man says this to another one who is being besieged by two ladies, and the Commercial-Appeal thinks he intended to say: “You will be lucky if you escape with marrying only one.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, after considering the question, it seems likely that there is more in <abbr>Mr.</abbr> J. H. Connelly’s remark than is dreamed of in the philosophy of the Commercial-Appeal.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, after considering the question, it seems likely that there is more in <abbr>Mr.</abbr> <abbr class="name">J. H.</abbr> Connelly’s remark than is dreamed of in the philosophy of the Commercial-Appeal.</p>
|
||||
<p>The history of matrimony gives color to the belief that, to whichever one of the ladies the gentleman might unite himself, he would be lucky if he escaped with only marrying her. Getting married is the easiest part of the affair. It is what comes afterward that makes a man sometimes wish a wolf had carried him into the forest when he was a little boy. It takes only a little nerve, a black coat, from five to ten dollars, and a girl, for a man to get married. Very few men are lucky enough to escape with only marrying a woman. Women are sometimes so capricious and unreasonable that they demand that a man stay around afterward, and board and clothe them, and build fires, and chop wood, and rock the chickens out of the garden, and tell the dressmaker when to send in her bill again.</p>
|
||||
<p>We would like to read “<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pettigrew’s Bad Dog” and find out whether the man was lucky enough to only marry the lady, or whether she held on to him afterward and didn’t let him escape.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="no-help-for-it" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">No Help for It</h2>
|
||||
<p>John,” said a Houston grocer the other day to one of his clerks. “You have been a faithful and competent clerk, and in order to .show my appreciation, I have decided to take you into partnership. From this time on you are to have a share in the business, and be a member of the firm.”</p>
|
||||
<p>John,” said a Houston grocer the other day to one of his clerks. “You have been a faithful and competent clerk, and in order to show my appreciation, I have decided to take you into partnership. From this time on you are to have a share in the business, and be a member of the firm.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But, sir,” said John anxiously, “I have a family to support. I appreciate the honor, but I fear I am too young for the responsibility. I would much rather retain my present place.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Can’t help it,” said the grocer. “Times are hard and I’ve got to cut down expenses if I have to take every clerk in the house into the firm.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -10,13 +10,13 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">“Not So Much a Tam Fool”</h2>
|
||||
<p>A man without a collar, wearing a white vest and holes in his elbows, walked briskly into a Congress Street grocery last Saturday with a package in his hand and said:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Here, Fritz, I bought two dozen eggs here this afternoon, and I find your clerk made a mistake, I—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Coom here, Emil,” shouted the grocer, “you hof dis shentleman sheated mit dos rotten eggs. Gif him ein dozen more, und—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Coom here, Emil,” shouted the grocer, “you hof dis shentleman sheated mit dos rotten eggs. Gif him ein dozen more, und—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But you don’t understand me,” said the man, with a pleasant smile. “The mistake is the other way. The eggs are all right; but you have given me too many. I only paid for two dozen, and on reaching home I find three dozen in the sack. I want to return the extra dozen, and I came back at once. I—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Emil!” shouted the grocer again to his boy. “Gif dis man two dozen eggs at vonce. You haf shea ted him mit pad eggs. Don’d you do dot any more times or I discharge you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Emil!” shouted the grocer again to his boy. “Gif dis man two dozen eggs at vonce. You haf sheated him mit pad eggs. Don’d you do dot any more times or I discharge you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But, sir,” said the man with the white vest, anxiously. “You gave me too many eggs for my money, and I want to return a dozen. I am too honest to—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Emil,” said the grocer, “gif dis man t’ree dozen goot fresh eggs at vonce and let him go. Ve makes pad eggs good ven ve sells dem. Hurry up quick and put in drei or four extra vons.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But, listen to me, sir,” said the man. “I want to—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say, mein frindt,” said the grocer in a lower voice, “you petter dake dose eggs und go home. I know vat you pring pack dose eggs for. If I dake dem, I say, ‘Veil, dot is ein very good man; he vas honest py dose eggs, aind’t it?’ Den you coom pack Monday und you puy nine tollers’ vorth of vlour and paeon and canned goots, and you say you bay me Saturday night. I was not so much a tarn fool as eferypody say I look like. You petter dake dose t’ree dozen eggs and call it skvare. Ve always correct leedle misdakes ven ve make dem. Emil, you petter make it t’ree - dozen und a half fur good measure, and put in two t’ree stick candy for die kinder.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say, mein frindt,” said the grocer in a lower voice, “you petter dake dose eggs und go home. I know vat you pring pack dose eggs for. If I dake dem, I say, ‘Veil, dot is ein very good man; he vas honest py dose eggs, aind’t it?’ Den you coom pack Monday und you puy nine tollers’ vorth of vlour and paeon and canned goots, and you say you bay me Saturday night. I was not so much a tarn fool as eferypody say I look like. You petter dake dose t’ree dozen eggs and call it skvare. Ve always correct leedle misdakes ven ve make dem. Emil, you petter make it t’ree dozen und a half fur good measure, and put in two t’ree stick candy for die kinder.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<p>Although we can stand a great deal, this attack has goaded us to what is perhaps a bitter and cruel, but not entirely an unjustifiable revenge. Below will be found an editorial from the last number of the Star-Vindicator:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Spring, with her magic word of music, pathos, and joy, has touched a thousand hills and vales, has set a million throats to warbling; sunshine, song, and flowers bedeck every altar and crown each day more glorious. Imperial spring is here—the brightest, gayest, and best of all God’s seasons. Springtime is like the little child—crowned with its own purity and love not tarnished and seared with the hand of Time. It is like the bright, sparkling miniature rivulet that bursts from the mountain side and goes merrily over the shining pebbles before it hastens into a dark, deep, dangerous river. The sweet cadence of music, the scent of wafted perfumes, the stretch of glorious landscape, radiated and beautified with lovely gems of Oriental hue, catch our attention at every step. The world today is a wilderness of flowers, a bower of beauty, and millions of sweet native warblers make its pastures concert halls, where we can go in peace at even-time, after the strife, the toil, the disappointments, and sorrows of our labors here and gather strength, courage, and hope to meet on the morrow life’s renewed duties and responsibilities.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Spring, with her magic word of music, pathos, and joy, has touched a thousand hills and vales, has set a million throats to warbling; sunshine, song, and flowers bedeck every altar and crown each day more glorious. Imperial spring is here—the brightest, gayest, and best of all God’s seasons. Springtime is like the little child—crowned with its own purity and love not tarnished and seared with the hand of Time. It is like the bright, sparkling miniature rivulet that bursts from the mountain side and goes merrily over the shining pebbles before it hastens into a dark, deep, dangerous river. The sweet cadence of music, the scent of wafted perfumes, the stretch of glorious landscape, radiated and beautified with lovely gems of Oriental hue, catch our attention at every step. The world today is a wilderness of flowers, a bower of beauty, and millions of sweet native warblers make its pastures concert halls, where we can go in peace at even-time, after the strife, the toil, the disappointments, and sorrows of our labors here and gather strength, courage, and hope to meet on the morrow life’s renewed duties and responsibilities.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -10,14 +10,14 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">The “Bad Man”</h2>
|
||||
<p>A bold, bad man made a general display of himself in a Texas town a few days ago. It seems that he’d imbibed a sufficient number of drinks to become anxious to impress the town with his badness, and when the officers tried to arrest him he backed up against the side of a building and defied arrest. A considerable crowd of citizens, among whom were a number of drummers from a hotel close by, had gathered to witness the scene.</p>
|
||||
<p>The bad man was a big, ferocious-looking fellow with long, curling hair that fell on his shoulders, a broad-brimmed hat, a buckskin coat with fringe around the bottom, and a picturesque vocabulary. He was flourishing a big six-shooter and swore by the bones of Davy Crockett that he would perforate the man who attempted to capture him.</p>
|
||||
<p>The city maishal stood in the middle of the street and tried to reason with him, but the bad man gave a whoop and rose up on his toes, and the whole crowd fell back to the other side of the street. The police had a conference, but none of them would volunteer to lead the attack.</p>
|
||||
<p>Presently a little, wizened, consumptivelooking drummer for a Connecticut shoe factory squeezed his way through the crowd on the opposite side of the street to have a peep at the desperado. He weighed about ninety pounds and wore double glass spectacles. Just then the desperado gave another whoop and yelled:</p>
|
||||
<p>The city marshal stood in the middle of the street and tried to reason with him, but the bad man gave a whoop and rose up on his toes, and the whole crowd fell back to the other side of the street. The police had a conference, but none of them would volunteer to lead the attack.</p>
|
||||
<p>Presently a little, wizened, consumptive-looking drummer for a Connecticut shoe factory squeezed his way through the crowd on the opposite side of the street to have a peep at the desperado. He weighed about ninety pounds and wore double glass spectacles. Just then the desperado gave another whoop and yelled:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Gol darn ye, why don’t some of ye come and take me? I’ll eat any five of ye without chawin’, and I ain’t hungry either—whoopee!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The crowd fell back a few yards further and the police turned pale again, but the skinny little man adjusted his spectacles with both hands, and stepped on to the edge of the sidewalk and took a good look at the bad men. Then he deliberately struck across the street at a funny hopping kind of a run right up to where the terror stood.</p>
|
||||
<p>The crowd yelled at him to come back, and the desperado flourished his six-shooter again, but the little man went straight up to him and said something. The crowd shuddered and expected to see him fall with a forty-five bullet in him, but he didn’t. They saw the desperado lower his pistol and run his hand in his pocket and hand something to the little man.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then the desperado walked sheepishly down the sidewalk, and the little man came back across the street.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bad man?’ he said. “I guess not. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. That’s Zeke Skinner. He was raised on the farm next to me in Connecticut. He’s selling some kind of fake liver medicine, and that’s his street rig he’s got on now. I loaned him eight dollars in Hartford nine years ago, and never expected to see him again. Thought I knew his voice. Pay? I reckon he paid me. I calculate I always collect what’s owing to me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Then the crowd scattered and the twelve policeman headed Zeke off at theuiext corner and clubbed him all the way to the station house.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then the crowd scattered and the twelve policeman headed Zeke off at the next corner and clubbed him all the way to the station house.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -30,7 +30,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“As soon as me and Andy saw that building the same idea struck both of us. We would fix it up with lights and pen wipers and professors, and put an iron dog and statues of Hercules and Father John on the lawn, and start one of the finest free educational institutions in the world right there.</p>
|
||||
<p>“So we talks it over to the prominent citizens of Floresville, who falls in fine with the idea. They give a banquet in the engine house to us, and we make our bow for the first time as benefactors to the cause of progress and enlightenment. Andy makes an hour-and-a-half speech on the subject of irrigation in Lower Egypt, and we have a moral tune on the phonograph and pineapple sherbet.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Andy and me didn’t lose any time in philanthropping. We put every man in town that could tell a hammer from a step ladder to work on the building, dividing it up into class rooms and lecture halls. We wire to Frisco for a car load of desks, footballs, arithmetics, penholders, dictionaries, chairs for the professors, slates, skeletons, sponges, twenty-seven cravenetted gowns and caps for the senior class, and an open order for all the truck that goes with a first-class university. I took it on myself to put a campus and a curriculum on the list; but the telegraph operator must have got the words wrong, being an ignorant man, for when the goods come we found a can of peas and a currycomb among ’em.</p>
|
||||
<p>“While the weekly papers was having chalk-plate cuts of me and Andy we wired an employment agency in Chicago to express us f.o.b., six professors immediately—one English literature, one up-to-date dead languages, one chemistry, one political economy—democrat preferred—one logic, and one wise to painting, Italian and music, with union card. The Esperanza bank guaranteed salaries, which was to run between $800 and $800.50.</p>
|
||||
<p>“While the weekly papers was having chalk-plate cuts of me and Andy we wired an employment agency in Chicago to express us <abbr class="initialism">FOB</abbr>, six professors immediately—one English literature, one up-to-date dead languages, one chemistry, one political economy—democrat preferred—one logic, and one wise to painting, Italian and music, with union card. The Esperanza bank guaranteed salaries, which was to run between $800 and $800.50.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, sir, we finally got in shape. Over the front door was carved the words: ‘The World’s University; Peters & Tucker, Patrons and Proprietors. And when September the first got a cross-mark on the calendar, the come-ons begun to roll in. First the faculty got off the tri-weekly express from Tucson. They was mostly young, spectacled, and redheaded, with sentiments divided between ambition and food. Andy and me got ’em billeted on the Floresvillians and then laid for the students.</p>
|
||||
<p>“They came in bunches. We had advertised the University in all the state papers, and it did us good to see how quick the country responded. Two hundred and nineteen husky lads aging along from 18 up to chin whiskers answered the clarion call of free education. They ripped open that town, sponged the seams, turned it, lined it with new mohair; and you couldn’t have told it from Harvard or Goldfields at the March term of court.</p>
|
||||
<p>“They marched up and down the streets waving flags with the World’s University colors—ultramarine and blue—and they certainly made a lively place of Floresville. Andy made them a speech from the balcony of the Skyview Hotel, and the whole town was out celebrating.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Exactly,’ says I. ‘Then why do the master minds of finance and philanthropy,’ says I, ‘charge us $2 to get into a racetrack and let us into a library free? Is that distilling into the masses,’ says I, ‘a correct estimate of the relative value of the two means of self-culture and disorder?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You are arguing outside of my faculties of sense and rhetoric,’ says Bill. ‘What I wanted you to do is to go to Washington and dig out this appointment for me. I haven’t no ideas of cultivation and intrigue. I’m a plain citizen and I need the job. I’ve killed seven men,’ says Bill; ‘I’ve got nine children; I’ve been a good Republican ever since the first of May; I can’t read nor write, and I see no reason why I ain’t illegible for the office. And I think your partner, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tucker,’ goes on Bill, ‘is also a man of sufficient ingratiation and connected system of mental delinquency to assist you in securing the appointment. I will give you preliminary,’ says Bill, ‘$1,000 for drinks, bribes and carfare in Washington. If you land the job I will pay you $1,000 more, cash down, and guarantee you impunity in bootlegging whiskey for twelve months. Are you patriotic to the West enough to help me put this thing through the Whitewashed Wigwam of the Great Father of the most eastern flag station of the Pennsylvania Railroad?’ says Bill.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, I talked to Andy about it, and he liked the idea immense. Andy was a man of an involved nature. He was never content to plod along, as I was, selling to the peasantry some little tool like a combination steak beater, shoe horn, marcel waver, monkey wrench, nail file, potato masher and Multum in Parvo tuning fork. Andy had the artistic temper, which is not to be judged as a preacher’s or a moral man’s is by purely commercial deflections. So we accepted Bill’s offer, and strikes out for Washington.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Says I to Andy, when we get located at a hotel on South Dakota Avenue, G.S.S.W. ‘Now Andy, for the first time in our lives we’ve got to do a real dishonest act. Lobbying is something we’ve never been used to; but we’ve got to scandalize ourselves for Bill Humble’s sake. In a straight and legitimate business,’ says I, ‘we could afford to introduce a little foul play and chicanery, but in a disorderly and heinous piece of malpractice like this it seems to me that the straightforward and aboveboard way is the best. I propose,’ says I, ‘that we hand over $500 of this money to the chairman of the national campaign committee, get a receipt, lay the receipt on the President’s desk and tell him about Bill. The President is a man who would appreciate a candidate who went about getting office that way instead of pulling wires.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Says I to Andy, when we get located at a hotel on South Dakota Avenue, <abbr>G.S.S.W.</abbr> ‘Now Andy, for the first time in our lives we’ve got to do a real dishonest act. Lobbying is something we’ve never been used to; but we’ve got to scandalize ourselves for Bill Humble’s sake. In a straight and legitimate business,’ says I, ‘we could afford to introduce a little foul play and chicanery, but in a disorderly and heinous piece of malpractice like this it seems to me that the straightforward and aboveboard way is the best. I propose,’ says I, ‘that we hand over $500 of this money to the chairman of the national campaign committee, get a receipt, lay the receipt on the President’s desk and tell him about Bill. The President is a man who would appreciate a candidate who went about getting office that way instead of pulling wires.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Andy agreed with me, but after we talked the scheme over with the hotel clerk we give that plan up. He told us that there was only one way to get an appointment in Washington, and that was through a lady lobbyist. He gave us the address of one he recommended, a <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Avery, who he said was high up in sociable and diplomatic rings and circles.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The next morning at 10 o’clock me and Andy called at her hotel, and was shown up to her reception room.</p>
|
||||
<p>“This <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Avery was a solace and a balm to the eyesight. She had hair the color of the back of a twenty dollar gold certificate, blue eyes and a system of beauty that would make the girl on the cover of a July magazine look like a cook on a Monongahela coal barge.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
|
||||
<p>A little boy, five or six years old, stood looking with covetous eyes in a confectioner’s window. In one small hand he held an empty two-ounce vial; in the other he grasped tightly something flat and round, with a shining milled edge. The scene presented a field of operations commensurate to Chicken’s talents and daring. After sweeping the horizon to make sure that no official tug was cruising near, he insidiously accosted his prey. The boy, having been early taught by his household to regard altruistic advances with extreme suspicion, received the overtures coldly.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then Chicken knew that he must make one of those desperate, nerve-shattering plunges into speculation that fortune sometimes requires of those who would win her favour. Five cents was his capital, and this he must risk against the chance of winning what lay within the close grasp of the youngster’s chubby hand. It was a fearful lottery, Chicken knew. But he must accomplish his end by strategy, since he had a wholesome terror of plundering infants by force. Once, in a park, driven by hunger, he had committed an onslaught upon a bottle of peptonized infant’s food in the possession of an occupant of a baby carriage. The outraged infant had so promptly opened its mouth and pressed the button that communicated with the welkin that help arrived, and Chicken did his thirty days in a snug coop. Wherefore he was, as he said, “leary of kids.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Beginning artfully to question the boy concerning his choice of sweets, he gradually drew out the information he wanted. Mamma said he was to ask the drug store man for ten cents’ worth of paregoric in the bottle; he was to keep his hand shut tight over the dollar; he must not stop to talk to anyone in the street; he must ask the drugstore man to wrap up the change and put it in the pocket of his trousers. Indeed, they had pockets—two of them! And he liked chocolate creams best.</p>
|
||||
<p>Chicken went into the store and turned plunger. He invested his entire capital in C.A.N.D.Y. stocks, simply to pave the way to the greater risk following.</p>
|
||||
<p>Chicken went into the store and turned plunger. He invested his entire capital in <abbr="acronym">CANDY</abbr> stocks, simply to pave the way to the greater risk following.</p>
|
||||
<p>He gave the sweets to the youngster, and had the satisfaction of perceiving that confidence was established. After that it was easy to obtain leadership of the expedition; to take the investment by the hand and lead it to a nice drug store he knew of in the same block. There Chicken, with a parental air, passed over the dollar and called for the medicine, while the boy crunched his candy, glad to be relieved of the responsibility of the purchase. And then the successful investor, searching his pockets, found an overcoat button—the extent of his winter trousseau—and, wrapping it carefully, placed the ostensible change in the pocket of confiding juvenility. Setting the youngster’s face homeward, and patting him benevolently on the back—for Chicken’s heart was as soft as those of his feathered namesakes—the speculator quit the market with a profit of 1,700 percent on his invested capital.</p>
|
||||
<p>Two hours later an Iron Mountain freight engine pulled out of the railroad yards, Texas bound, with a string of empties. In one of the cattle cars, half buried in excelsior, Chicken lay at ease. Beside him in his nest was a quart bottle of very poor whisky and a paper bag of bread and cheese. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ruggles, in his private car, was on his trip south for the winter season.</p>
|
||||
<p>For a week that car was trundled southward, shifted, laid over, and manipulated after the manner of rolling stock, but Chicken stuck to it, leaving it only at necessary times to satisfy his hunger and thirst. He knew it must go down to the cattle country, and San Antonio, in the heart of it, was his goal. There the air was salubrious and mild; the people indulgent and long-suffering. The bartenders there would not kick him. If he should eat too long or too often at one place they would swear at him as if by rote and without heat. They swore so drawlingly, and they rarely paused short of their full vocabulary, which was copious, so that Chicken had often gulped a good meal during the process of the vituperative prohibition. The season there was always springlike; the plazas were pleasant at night, with music and gaiety; except during the slight and infrequent cold snaps one could sleep comfortably out of doors in case the interiors should develop inhospitability.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -35,7 +35,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Poor old Bill was hungry,” interrupted Givens, in quick defence of the deceased. “We always made him jump for his supper in camp. He would lie down and roll over for a piece of meat. When he saw you he thought he was going to get something to eat from you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly Josefa’s eyes opened wide.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I might have shot you!” she exclaimed. “You ran right in between. You risked your life to save your pet! That was fine, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Givens. I like a man who is kind to animals.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Yes; there was even admiration in her gaze now. After all, there was a hero rising out of the ruins of the anticlimax. The look on Givens’s face would have secured him a high position in the S.P.C.A.</p>
|
||||
<p>Yes; there was even admiration in her gaze now. After all, there was a hero rising out of the ruins of the anticlimax. The look on Givens’s face would have secured him a high position in the <abbr class="initialisism">SPCA</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I always loved ’em,” said he; “horses, dogs, Mexican lions, cows, alligators—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I hate alligators,” instantly demurred Josefa; “crawly, muddy things!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did I say alligators?” said Givens. “I meant antelopes, of course.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
|
||||
<section id="the-wounded-veteran" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">The Wounded Veteran</h2>
|
||||
<p>A party of Northern tourists passed through Houston the other day, and while their train was waiting at the depot an old colored man, with one arm bandaged and hung in an old red handkerchief for a sling, walked along the platform.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What’s the matter with your arm, uncled’ called out one of the tourists.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What’s the matter with your arm, uncle?” called out one of the tourists.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It was hurt in de wah, sah. Hab you any ’bacco you could gib a po’ ole niggah, sah?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Several of the tourists poked their heads out of the car windows to listen, and in a few moments the old darky had taken up a collection in his hat, consisting of a plug of tobacco, three or four cigars, and sundry nickels, dimes, and quarters.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How were you wounded?” asked a tourist. “Were you shot in the arm?”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Now you have the material allegations in the case. So, make way for Romance.</p>
|
||||
<p>Evidently the hermit expected a visitor. He carefully combed his long hair and parted his apostolic beard. When the ninety-eight-cent alarm-clock on a stone shelf announced the hour of five he picked up his gunny-sacking skirts, brushed them carefully, gathered an oaken staff, and strolled slowly into the thick woods that surrounded the hermitage.</p>
|
||||
<p>He had not long to wait. Up the faint pathway, slippery with its carpet of pine-needles, toiled Beatrix, youngest and fairest of the famous Trenholme sisters. She was all in blue from hat to canvas pumps, varying in tint from the shade of the tinkle of a bluebell at daybreak on a spring Saturday to the deep hue of a Monday morning at nine when the washerwoman has failed to show up.</p>
|
||||
<p>Beatrix dug her cerulean parasol deep into the pine-needles and sighed. The hermit, on the <abbr>q. t.</abbr>, removed a grass burr from the ankle of one sandalled foot with the big toe of his other one. She blued—and almost starched and ironed him—with her cobalt eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>Beatrix dug her cerulean parasol deep into the pine-needles and sighed. The hermit, on the <abbr class="initialism">QT</abbr>, removed a grass burr from the ankle of one sandalled foot with the big toe of his other one. She blued—and almost starched and ironed him—with her cobalt eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It must be so nice,” she said in little, tremulous gasps, “to be a hermit, and have ladies climb mountains to talk to you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The hermit folded his arms and leaned against a tree. Beatrix, with a sigh, settled down upon the mat of pine-needles like a bluebird upon her nest. The hermit followed suit; drawing his feet rather awkwardly under his gunny-sacking.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It must be nice to be a mountain,” said he, with ponderous lightness, “and have angels in blue climb up you instead of flying over you.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -81,7 +81,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Old François Beongfallong, the great astronomer, who is studying the sidereal spheres from his attic window in the Rue de Bologny, shudders as he turns his telescope upon the solitary figure upon the spire.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sacrè Bleu!” he hisses between his new celluloid teeth. “It is Tictocq, the detective. I wonder whom he is following now?”</p>
|
||||
<p>While Tictocq is watching with lynx-like eyes the hill of Montmartre, he suddenly hears a heavy breathing beside him, and turning, gazes into the ferocious eyes of the Gray Wolf.</p>
|
||||
<p>Carnaignole Cusheau had put on his <abbr>W. U.</abbr> <abbr>Tel.</abbr> <abbr>Co.</abbr> climbers and climbed the steeple.</p>
|
||||
<p>Carnaignole Cusheau had put on his <abbr class="name">W. U.</abbr> <abbr>Tel.</abbr> <abbr>Co.</abbr> climbers and climbed the steeple.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<i xml:lang="fr">Parbleu</i>, monsieur,” says Tictocq. “To whom am I indebted for the honor of this visit?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Gray Wolf smiled softly and depreciatingly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You are Tictocq, the detective?” he said.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
|
||||
<p>The bartender glanced at him and then went on chipping lemon peel into a saucer.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say,” said the man with the red tie, “it makes me right sick to think about it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What?” said the bartender, “water?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No sir; the apathy displayed by the people of the state in regard to presenting the battleship Texas with a suitable present. It is a disgrace to our patriotism. I was talking to W. G. Cleveland this morning and we both agreed that something must be done at once. Would you give ten dollars toward a silver service to be presented to the ship?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No sir; the apathy displayed by the people of the state in regard to presenting the battleship Texas with a suitable present. It is a disgrace to our patriotism. I was talking to <abbr class="name">W. G.</abbr> Cleveland this morning and we both agreed that something must be done at once. Would you give ten dollars toward a silver service to be presented to the ship?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The bartender reached behind him and took up a glass that was sitting on the shelf.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t know that I would give you ten dollars,” he said, “but here’s some whisky that I put some turpentine in by mistake this morning and forgot to throw it out. Will that do as well?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It will,” said the man with the red tie, reaching for the glass, “and I am also soliciting aid for the Cuban patriots. If you want to assist the cause of liberty and can’t spare the cash, if you could rustle up a glass of beer with a fly in it, I would—”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue
Block a user