Semanticate
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Alex Cabal
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<p>“The riddle? Why, it was this: ‘What kind of a hen lays the longest? Think of that! What kind of a hen lays the longest? Ain’t it like a Dutchman to risk a man’s happiness on a fool proposition like that? Now, what’s the use? What I don’t know about hens would fill several incubators. You say you’re giving imitations of the old Arab guy that gave away—libraries in Bagdad. Well, now, can you whistle up a fairy that’ll solve this hen query, or not?”</p>
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<p>When the young man ceased the Margrave arose and paced to and fro by the park bench for several minutes. Finally he sat again, and said, in grave and impressive tones:</p>
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<p>“I must confess, sir, that during the eight years that I have spent in search of adventure and in relieving distress I have never encountered a more interesting or a more perplexing case. I fear that I have overlooked hens in my researches and observations. As to their habits, their times and manner of laying, their many varieties and cross-breedings, their span of life, their—”</p>
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<p>“Oh, don’t make an Ibsen drama of it!” interrupted the young man, flippantly. “Riddles—especially old Hildebrant’s riddles—don’t have to be worked out seriously. They are light themes such as Sim Ford and Harry Thurston Peck like to handle. But, somehow, I can’t strike just the answer. Bill Watson may, and he may not. Tomorrow will tell. Well, Your Majesty, I’m glad anyhow that you butted in and whiled the time away. I guess <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Al Rashid himself would have bounced back if one of his constituents had conducted him up against this riddle. I’ll say good night. Peace fo’ yours, and what-you-may-call-its of Allah.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, don’t make an Ibsen drama of it!” interrupted the young man, flippantly. “Riddles—especially old Hildebrant’s riddles—don’t have to be worked out seriously. They are light themes such as Sim Ford and Harry Thurston Peck like to handle. But, somehow, I can’t strike just the answer. Bill Watson may, and he may not. Tomorrow will tell. Well, Your Majesty, I’m glad anyhow that you butted in and whiled the time away. I guess <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Al Rashid himself would have bounced back if one of his constituents had conducted him up against this riddle. I’ll say good night. Peace fo’ yours, and what-you-may-call-its of Allah.”</p>
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<p>The Margrave, still with a gloomy air, held out his hand.</p>
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<p>“I cannot express my regret,” he said, sadly. “Never before have I found myself unable to assist in some way. ‘What kind of a hen lays the longest?’ It is a baffling problem. There is a hen, I believe, called the Plymouth Rock that—”</p>
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<p>“Cut it out,” said the young man. “The Caliph trade is a mighty serious one. I don’t suppose you’d even see anything funny in a preacher’s defense of John <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">D.</abbr> Rockefeller. Well, good night, Your Nibs.”</p>
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<p>Hildebrant’s 200 pounds reposed on a bench, silver-buckling a raw leather martingale.</p>
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<p>Bill Watson came in first.</p>
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<p>“Vell,” said Hildebrant, shaking all over with the vile conceit of the joke-maker, “haf you guessed him? ‘Vat kind of a hen lays der longest?’ ”</p>
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<p>“Er—why, I think so,” said Bill, rubbing a servile chin. “I think so, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hildebrant—the one that lives the longest—Is that right?”</p>
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<p>“Er—why, I think so,” said Bill, rubbing a servile chin. “I think so, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Hildebrant—the one that lives the longest—Is that right?”</p>
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<p>“Nein!” said Hildebrant, shaking his head violently. “You haf not guessed der answer.”</p>
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<p>Bill passed on and donned a bed-tick apron and bachelorhood.</p>
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<p>In came the young man of the Arabian Night’s fiasco—pale, melancholy, hopeless.</p>
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<p>Fortune, passing over many anxious wooers, made a freakish flight into Blackjack’s bosky pockets to smile upon Pike and his faithful partner.</p>
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<p>One day a party of spectacled, knickerbockered, and altogether absurd prospectors invaded the vicinity of the Garvey’s cabin. Pike lifted his squirrel rifle off the hooks and took a shot at them at long range on the chance of their being revenues. Happily he missed, and the unconscious agents of good luck drew nearer, disclosing their innocence of anything resembling law or justice. Later on, they offered the Garveys an enormous quantity of ready, green, crisp money for their thirty-acre patch of cleared land, mentioning, as an excuse for such a mad action, some irrelevant and inadequate nonsense about a bed of mica underlying the said property.</p>
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<p>When the Garveys became possessed of so many dollars that they faltered in computing them, the deficiencies of life on Blackjack began to grow prominent. Pike began to talk of new shoes, a hogshead of tobacco to set in the corner, a new lock to his rifle; and, leading Martella to a certain spot on the mountainside, he pointed out to her how a small cannon—doubtless a thing not beyond the scope of their fortune in price—might be planted so as to command and defend the sole accessible trail to the cabin, to the confusion of revenues and meddling strangers forever.</p>
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<p>But Adam reckoned without his Eve. These things represented to him the applied power of wealth, but there slumbered in his dingy cabin an ambition that soared far above his primitive wants. Somewhere in <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Garvey’s bosom still survived a spot of femininity unstarved by twenty years of Blackjack. For so long a time the sounds in her ears had been the scaly-barks dropping in the woods at noon, and the wolves singing among the rocks at night, and it was enough to have purged her of vanities. She had grown fat and sad and yellow and dull. But when the means came, she felt a rekindled desire to assume the perquisites of her sex—to sit at tea tables; to buy futile things; to whitewash the hideous veracity of life with a little form and ceremony. So she coldly vetoed Pike’s proposed system of fortifications, and announced that they would descend upon the world, and gyrate socially.</p>
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<p>And thus, at length, it was decided, and the thing done. The village of Laurel was their compromise between <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Garvey’s preference for one of the large valley towns and Pike’s hankering for primeval solitudes. Laurel yielded a halting round of feeble social distractions comportable with Martella’s ambitions, and was not entirely without recommendation to Pike, its contiguity to the mountains presenting advantages for sudden retreat in case fashionable society should make it advisable.</p>
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<p>But Adam reckoned without his Eve. These things represented to him the applied power of wealth, but there slumbered in his dingy cabin an ambition that soared far above his primitive wants. Somewhere in <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Garvey’s bosom still survived a spot of femininity unstarved by twenty years of Blackjack. For so long a time the sounds in her ears had been the scaly-barks dropping in the woods at noon, and the wolves singing among the rocks at night, and it was enough to have purged her of vanities. She had grown fat and sad and yellow and dull. But when the means came, she felt a rekindled desire to assume the perquisites of her sex—to sit at tea tables; to buy futile things; to whitewash the hideous veracity of life with a little form and ceremony. So she coldly vetoed Pike’s proposed system of fortifications, and announced that they would descend upon the world, and gyrate socially.</p>
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<p>And thus, at length, it was decided, and the thing done. The village of Laurel was their compromise between <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Garvey’s preference for one of the large valley towns and Pike’s hankering for primeval solitudes. Laurel yielded a halting round of feeble social distractions comportable with Martella’s ambitions, and was not entirely without recommendation to Pike, its contiguity to the mountains presenting advantages for sudden retreat in case fashionable society should make it advisable.</p>
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<p>Their descent upon Laurel had been coincident with Yancey Goree’s feverish desire to convert property into cash, and they bought the old Goree homestead, paying four thousand dollars ready money into the spendthrift’s shaking hands.</p>
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<p>Thus it happened that while the disreputable last of the Gorees sprawled in his disreputable office, at the end of his row, spurned by the cronies whom he had gorged, strangers dwelt in the halls of his fathers.</p>
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<p>A cloud of dust was rolling, slowly up the parched street, with something travelling in the midst of it. A little breeze wafted the cloud to one side, and a new, brightly painted carryall, drawn by a slothful gray horse, became visible. The vehicle deflected from the middle of the street as it neared Goree’s office, and stopped in the gutter directly in front of his door.</p>
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<p>On the front seat sat a gaunt, tall man, dressed in black broadcloth, his rigid hands incarcerated in yellow kid gloves. On the back seat was a lady who triumphed over the June heat. Her stout form was armoured in a skintight silk dress of the description known as “changeable,” being a gorgeous combination of shifting hues. She sat erect, waving a much-ornamented fan, with her eyes fixed stonily far down the street. However Martella Garvey’s heart might be rejoicing at the pleasures of her new life, Blackjack had done his work with her exterior. He had carved her countenance to the image of emptiness and inanity; had imbued her with the stolidity of his crags, and the reserve of his hushed interiors. She always seemed to hear, whatever her surroundings were, the scaly-barks falling and pattering down the mountainside. She could always hear the awful silence of Blackjack sounding through the stillest of nights.</p>
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<p>Goree watched this solemn equipage, as it drove to his door, with only faint interest; but when the lank driver wrapped the reins about his whip, awkwardly descended, and stepped into the office, he rose unsteadily to receive him, recognizing Pike Garvey, the new, the transformed, the recently civilized.</p>
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<p>The mountaineer took the chair Goree offered him. They who cast doubts upon Garvey’s soundness of mind had a strong witness in the man’s countenance. His face was too long, a dull saffron in hue, and immobile as a statue’s. Pale-blue, unwinking round eyes without lashes added to the singularity of his gruesome visage. Goree was at a loss to account for the visit.</p>
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<p>“Everything all right at Laurel, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Garvey?” he inquired.</p>
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<p>“Everything all right, sir, and mighty pleased is Missis Garvey and me with the property. Missis Garvey likes yo’ old place, and she likes the neighbourhood. Society is what she ’lows she wants, and she is gettin’ of it. The Rogerses, the Hapgoods, the Pratts and the Troys hev been to see Missis Garvey, and she hev et meals to most of thar houses. The best folks hev axed her to differ’nt kinds of doin’s. I cyan’t say, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree, that sech things suits me—fur me, give me them thar.” Garvey’s huge, yellow-gloved hand flourished in the direction of the mountains. “That’s whar I b’long, ’mongst the wild honey bees and the b’ars. But that ain’t what I come fur to say, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree. Thar’s somethin’ you got what me and Missis Garvey wants to buy.”</p>
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<p>“Everything all right at Laurel, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Garvey?” he inquired.</p>
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<p>“Everything all right, sir, and mighty pleased is Missis Garvey and me with the property. Missis Garvey likes yo’ old place, and she likes the neighbourhood. Society is what she ’lows she wants, and she is gettin’ of it. The Rogerses, the Hapgoods, the Pratts and the Troys hev been to see Missis Garvey, and she hev et meals to most of thar houses. The best folks hev axed her to differ’nt kinds of doin’s. I cyan’t say, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Goree, that sech things suits me—fur me, give me them thar.” Garvey’s huge, yellow-gloved hand flourished in the direction of the mountains. “That’s whar I b’long, ’mongst the wild honey bees and the b’ars. But that ain’t what I come fur to say, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Goree. Thar’s somethin’ you got what me and Missis Garvey wants to buy.”</p>
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<p>“Buy!” echoed Goree. “From me?” Then he laughed harshly. “I reckon you are mistaken about that. I reckon you are mistaken about that. I sold out to you, as you yourself expressed it, ‘lock, stock and barrel.’ There isn’t even a ramrod left to sell.”</p>
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<p>“You’ve got it; and we ’uns want it. ‘Take the money,’ says Missis Garvey, ‘and buy it fa’r and squar’.’ ”</p>
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<p>Goree shook his head. “The cupboard’s bare,” he said.</p>
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<p>Garvey threw his slouch hat upon the table, and leaned forward, fixing his unblinking eyes upon Goree’s.</p>
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<p>“There’s a old feud,” he said distinctly and slowly, “ ’tween you ’uns and the Coltranes.”</p>
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<p>Goree frowned ominously. To speak of his feud to a feudist is a serious breach of the mountain etiquette. The man from “back yan’ ” knew it as well as the lawyer did.</p>
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<p>“Na offense,” he went on “but purely in the way of business. Missis Garvey hev studied all about feuds. Most of the quality folks in the mountains hev ’em. The Settles and the Goforths, the Rankins and the Boyds, the Silers and the Galloways, hev all been cyarin’ on feuds f’om twenty to a hundred year. The last man to drap was when yo’ uncle, Jedge Paisley Goree, ’journed co’t and shot Len Coltrane f’om the bench. Missis Garvey and me, we come f’om the po’ white trash. Nobody wouldn’t pick a feud with we ’uns, no mo’n with a fam’ly of tree-toads. Quality people everywhar, says Missis Garvey, has feuds. We ’uns ain’t quality, but we’re buyin’ into it as fur as we can. ‘Take the money, then,’ says Missis Garvey, ‘and buy <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree’s feud, fa’r and squar’.’ ”</p>
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<p>“Na offense,” he went on “but purely in the way of business. Missis Garvey hev studied all about feuds. Most of the quality folks in the mountains hev ’em. The Settles and the Goforths, the Rankins and the Boyds, the Silers and the Galloways, hev all been cyarin’ on feuds f’om twenty to a hundred year. The last man to drap was when yo’ uncle, Jedge Paisley Goree, ’journed co’t and shot Len Coltrane f’om the bench. Missis Garvey and me, we come f’om the po’ white trash. Nobody wouldn’t pick a feud with we ’uns, no mo’n with a fam’ly of tree-toads. Quality people everywhar, says Missis Garvey, has feuds. We ’uns ain’t quality, but we’re buyin’ into it as fur as we can. ‘Take the money, then,’ says Missis Garvey, ‘and buy <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Goree’s feud, fa’r and squar’.’ ”</p>
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<p>The squirrel hunter straightened a leg half across the room, drew a roll of bills from his pocket, and threw them on the table.</p>
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<p>“Thar’s two hundred dollars, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree; what you would call a fa’r price for a feud that’s been ’lowed to run down like yourn hev. Thar’s only you left to cyar’ on yo’ side of it, and you’d make mighty po’ killin’. I’ll take it off yo’ hands, and it’ll set me and Missis Garvey up among the quality. Thar’s the money.”</p>
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<p>“Thar’s two hundred dollars, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Goree; what you would call a fa’r price for a feud that’s been ’lowed to run down like yourn hev. Thar’s only you left to cyar’ on yo’ side of it, and you’d make mighty po’ killin’. I’ll take it off yo’ hands, and it’ll set me and Missis Garvey up among the quality. Thar’s the money.”</p>
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<p>The little roll of currency on the table slowly untwisted itself, writhing and jumping as its folds relaxed. In the silence that followed Garvey’s last speech the rattling of the poker chips in the courthouse could be plainly heard. Goree knew that the sheriff had just won a pot, for the subdued whoop with which he always greeted a victory floated across the square upon the crinkly heat waves. Beads of moisture stood on Goree’s brow. Stooping, he drew the wicker-covered demijohn from under the table, and filled a tumbler from it.</p>
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<p>“A little corn liquor, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Garvey? Of course you are joking about—what you spoke of? Opens quite a new market, doesn’t it? Feuds. Prime, two-fifty to three. Feuds, slightly damaged—two hundred, I believe you said, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Garvey?”</p>
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<p>“A little corn liquor, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Garvey? Of course you are joking about—what you spoke of? Opens quite a new market, doesn’t it? Feuds. Prime, two-fifty to three. Feuds, slightly damaged—two hundred, I believe you said, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Garvey?”</p>
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<p>Goree laughed self-consciously.</p>
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<p>The mountaineer took the glass Goree handed him, and drank the whisky without a tremor of the lids of his staring eyes. The lawyer applauded the feat by a look of envious admiration. He poured his own drink, and took it like a drunkard, by gulps, and with shudders at the smell and taste.</p>
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<p>“Two hundred,” repeated Garvey. “Thar’s the money.”</p>
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<p>A sudden passion flared up in Goree’s brain. He struck the table with his fist. One of the bills flipped over and touched his hand. He flinched as if something had stung him.</p>
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<p>“Do you come to me,” he shouted, “seriously with such a ridiculous, insulting, darned-fool proposition?”</p>
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<p>“It’s fa’r and squar’,” said the squirrel hunter, but he reached out his hand as if to take back the money; and then Goree knew that his own flurry of rage had not been from pride or resentment, but from anger at himself, knowing that he would set foot in the deeper depths that were being opened to him. He turned in an instant from an outraged gentleman to an anxious chafferer recommending his goods.</p>
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<p>“Don’t be in a hurry, Garvey,” he said, his face crimson and his speech thick. “I accept your p-p-proposition, though it’s dirt cheap at two hundred. A t-trade’s all right when both p-purchaser and b-buyer are s-satisfied. Shall I w-wrap it up for you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Garvey?”</p>
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<p>Garvey rose, and shook out his broadcloth. “Missis Garvey will be pleased. You air out of it, and it stands Coltrane and Garvey. Just a scrap ov writin’, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree, you bein’ a lawyer, to show we traded.”</p>
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<p>“Don’t be in a hurry, Garvey,” he said, his face crimson and his speech thick. “I accept your p-p-proposition, though it’s dirt cheap at two hundred. A t-trade’s all right when both p-purchaser and b-buyer are s-satisfied. Shall I w-wrap it up for you, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Garvey?”</p>
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<p>Garvey rose, and shook out his broadcloth. “Missis Garvey will be pleased. You air out of it, and it stands Coltrane and Garvey. Just a scrap ov writin’, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Goree, you bein’ a lawyer, to show we traded.”</p>
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<p>Goree seized a sheet of paper and a pen. The money was clutched in his moist hand. Everything else suddenly seemed to grow trivial and light.</p>
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<p>“Bill of sale, by all means. ‘Right, title, and interest in and to’ … ‘forever warrant and—’ No, Garvey, we’ll have to leave out that ‘defend,’ ” said Goree with a loud laugh. “You’ll have to defend this title yourself.”</p>
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<p>The mountaineer received the amazing screed that the lawyer handed him, folded it with immense labour, and laced it carefully in his pocket.</p>
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<p>The mountaineer crooked his long frame to look through the window in the direction indicated by the other. Colonel Abner Coltrane, an erect, portly gentleman of about fifty, wearing the inevitable long, double-breasted frock coat of the Southern lawmaker, and an old high silk hat, was passing on the opposite sidewalk. As Garvey looked, Goree glanced at his face. If there be such a thing as a yellow wolf, here was its counterpart. Garvey snarled as his unhuman eyes followed the moving figure, disclosing long, amber-coloured fangs.</p>
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<p>“Is that him? Why, that’s the man who sent me to the pen’tentiary once!”</p>
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<p>“He used to be district attorney,” said Goree carelessly. “And, by the way, he’s a first-class shot.”</p>
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<p>“I kin hit a squirrel’s eye at a hundred yard,” said Garvey. “So that thar’s Coltrane! I made a better trade than I was thinkin’. I’ll take keer ov this feud, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree, better’n you ever did!”</p>
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<p>“I kin hit a squirrel’s eye at a hundred yard,” said Garvey. “So that thar’s Coltrane! I made a better trade than I was thinkin’. I’ll take keer ov this feud, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Goree, better’n you ever did!”</p>
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<p>He moved toward the door, but lingered there, betraying a slight perplexity.</p>
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<p>“Anything else today?” inquired Goree with frothy sarcasm. “Any family traditions, ancestral ghosts, or skeletons in the closet? Prices as low as the lowest.”</p>
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<p>“Thar was another thing,” replied the unmoved squirrel hunter, “that Missis Garvey was thinkin’ of. ’Tain’t so much in my line as t’other, but she wanted partic’lar that I should inquire, and ef you was willin’, ‘pay fur it,’ she says, ‘fa’r and squar’.’ Thar’s a buryin’ groun’, as you know, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree, in the yard of yo’ old place, under the cedars. Them that lies thar is yo’ folks what was killed by the Coltranes. The monyments has the names on ’em. Missis Garvey says a fam’ly buryin’ groun’ is a sho’ sign of quality. She says ef we git the feud, thar’s somethin’ else ought to go with it. The names on them monyments is ‘Goree,’ but they can be changed to ourn by—”</p>
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<p>“Thar was another thing,” replied the unmoved squirrel hunter, “that Missis Garvey was thinkin’ of. ’Tain’t so much in my line as t’other, but she wanted partic’lar that I should inquire, and ef you was willin’, ‘pay fur it,’ she says, ‘fa’r and squar’.’ Thar’s a buryin’ groun’, as you know, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Goree, in the yard of yo’ old place, under the cedars. Them that lies thar is yo’ folks what was killed by the Coltranes. The monyments has the names on ’em. Missis Garvey says a fam’ly buryin’ groun’ is a sho’ sign of quality. She says ef we git the feud, thar’s somethin’ else ought to go with it. The names on them monyments is ‘Goree,’ but they can be changed to ourn by—”</p>
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<p>“Go! Go!” screamed Goree, his face turning purple. He stretched out both hands toward the mountaineer, his fingers hooked and shaking. “Go, you ghoul! Even a Ch-Chinaman protects the g-graves of his ancestors—go!”</p>
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<p>The squirrel hunter slouched out of the door to his carryall. While he was climbing over the wheel Goree was collecting, with feverish celerity, the money that had fallen from his hand to the floor. As the vehicle slowly turned about, the sheep, with a coat of newly grown wool, was hurrying, in indecent haste, along the path to the courthouse.</p>
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<p>At three o’clock in the morning they brought him back to his office, shorn and unconscious. The sheriff, the sportive deputy, the county clerk, and the gay attorney carried him, the chalk-faced man “from the valley” acting as escort.</p>
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<p>Long Bill was a graduate of the camp and trail. Luck and thrift, a cool head, and a telescopic eye for mavericks had raised him from cowboy to be a cowman. Then came the boom in cattle, and Fortune, stepping gingerly among the cactus thorns, came and emptied her cornucopia at the doorstep of the ranch.</p>
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<p>In the little frontier city of Chaparosa, Longley built a costly residence. Here he became a captive, bound to the chariot of social existence. He was doomed to become a leading citizen. He struggled for a time like a mustang in his first corral, and then he hung up his quirt and spurs. Time hung heavily on his hands. He organised the First National Bank of Chaparosa, and was elected its president.</p>
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<p>One day a dyspeptic man, wearing double-magnifying glasses, inserted an official-looking card between the bars of the cashier’s window of the First National Bank. Five minutes later the bank force was dancing at the beck and call of a national bank examiner.</p>
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<p>This examiner, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">J.</abbr> Edgar Todd, proved to be a thorough one.</p>
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<p>At the end of it all the examiner put on his hat, and called the president, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> William <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">R.</abbr> Longley, into the private office.</p>
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<p>This examiner, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">J.</abbr> Edgar Todd, proved to be a thorough one.</p>
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<p>At the end of it all the examiner put on his hat, and called the president, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> William <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">R.</abbr> Longley, into the private office.</p>
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<p>“Well, how do you find things?” asked Longley, in his slow, deep tones. “Any brands in the roundup you didn’t like the looks of?”</p>
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<p>“The bank checks up all right, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Longley,” said Todd; “and I find your loans in very good shape—with one exception. You are carrying one very bad bit of paper—one that is so bad that I have been thinking that you surely do not realise the serious position it places you in. I refer to a call loan of $10,000 made to Thomas Merwin. Not only is the amount in excess of the maximum sum the bank can loan any individual legally, but it is absolutely without endorsement or security. Thus you have doubly violated the national banking laws, and have laid yourself open to criminal prosecution by the Government. A report of the matter to the Comptroller of the Currency—which I am bound to make—would, I am sure, result in the matter being turned over to the Department of Justice for action. You see what a serious thing it is.”</p>
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||||
<p>“The bank checks up all right, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Longley,” said Todd; “and I find your loans in very good shape—with one exception. You are carrying one very bad bit of paper—one that is so bad that I have been thinking that you surely do not realise the serious position it places you in. I refer to a call loan of $10,000 made to Thomas Merwin. Not only is the amount in excess of the maximum sum the bank can loan any individual legally, but it is absolutely without endorsement or security. Thus you have doubly violated the national banking laws, and have laid yourself open to criminal prosecution by the Government. A report of the matter to the Comptroller of the Currency—which I am bound to make—would, I am sure, result in the matter being turned over to the Department of Justice for action. You see what a serious thing it is.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Bill Longley was leaning his lengthy, slowly moving frame back in his swivel chair. His hands were clasped behind his head, and he turned a little to look the examiner in the face. The examiner was surprised to see a smile creep about the rugged mouth of the banker, and a kindly twinkle in his light-blue eyes. If he saw the seriousness of the affair, it did not show in his countenance.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course, you don’t know Tom Merwin,” said Longley, almost genially. “Yes, I know about that loan. It hasn’t any security except Tom Merwin’s word. Somehow, I’ve always found that when a man’s word is good it’s the best security there is. Oh, yes, I know the Government doesn’t think so. I guess I’ll see Tom about that note.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Todd’s dyspepsia seemed to grow suddenly worse. He looked at the chaparral banker through his double-magnifying glasses in amazement.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Todd’s dyspepsia seemed to grow suddenly worse. He looked at the chaparral banker through his double-magnifying glasses in amazement.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You see,” said Longley, easily explaining the thing away, “Tom heard of 2000 head of two-year-olds down near Rocky Ford on the Rio Grande that could be had for $8 a head. I reckon ’twas one of old Leandro Garcia’s outfits that he had smuggled over, and he wanted to make a quick turn on ’em. Those cattle are worth $15 on the hoof in Kansas City. Tom knew it and I knew it. He had $6,000, and I let him have the $10,000 to make the deal with. His brother Ed took ’em on to market three weeks ago. He ought to be back ’most any day now with the money. When he comes Tom’ll pay that note.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The bank examiner was shocked. It was, perhaps, his duty to step out to the telegraph office and wire the situation to the Comptroller. But he did not. He talked pointedly and effectively to Longley for three minutes. He succeeded in making the banker understand that he stood upon the border of a catastrophe. And then he offered a tiny loophole of escape.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am going to Hilldale’s tonight,” he told Longley, “to examine a bank there. I will pass through Chaparosa on my way back. At twelve o’clock tomorrow I shall call at this bank. If this loan has been cleared out of the way by that time it will not be mentioned in my report. If not—I will have to do my duty.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
|
||||
<p>But while the wedding feast was at its liveliest there descended upon it Johnny McRoy, bitten by jealousy, like one possessed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll give you a Christmas present,” he yelled, shrilly, at the door, with his .45 in his hand. Even then he had some reputation as an offhand shot.</p>
|
||||
<p>His first bullet cut a neat underbit in Madison Lane’s right ear. The barrel of his gun moved an inch. The next shot would have been the bride’s had not Carson, a sheepman, possessed a mind with triggers somewhat well oiled and in repair. The guns of the wedding party had been hung, in their belts, upon nails in the wall when they sat at table, as a concession to good taste. But Carson, with great promptness, hurled his plate of roast venison and frijoles at McRoy, spoiling his aim. The second bullet, then, only shattered the white petals of a Spanish dagger flower suspended two feet above Rosita’s head.</p>
|
||||
<p>The guests spurned their chairs and jumped for their weapons. It was considered an improper act to shoot the bride and groom at a wedding. In about six seconds there were twenty or so bullets due to be whizzing in the direction of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McRoy.</p>
|
||||
<p>The guests spurned their chairs and jumped for their weapons. It was considered an improper act to shoot the bride and groom at a wedding. In about six seconds there were twenty or so bullets due to be whizzing in the direction of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McRoy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll shoot better next time,” yelled Johnny; “and there’ll be a next time.” He backed rapidly out the door.</p>
|
||||
<p>Carson, the sheepman, spurred on to attempt further exploits by the success of his plate-throwing, was first to reach the door. McRoy’s bullet from the darkness laid him low.</p>
|
||||
<p>The cattlemen then swept out upon him, calling for vengeance, for, while the slaughter of a sheepman has not always lacked condonement, it was a decided misdemeanour in this instance. Carson was innocent; he was no accomplice at the matrimonial proceedings; nor had anyone heard him quote the line “Christmas comes but once a year” to the guests.</p>
|
||||
@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
|
||||
<p>One who has been crossed in love should never breathe the odour from the blossoms of the ratama tree. It stirs the memory to a dangerous degree.</p>
|
||||
<p>One December in the Frio country there was a ratama tree in full bloom, for the winter had been as warm as springtime. That way rode the Frio Kid and his satellite and co-murderer, Mexican Frank. The kid reined in his mustang, and sat in his saddle, thoughtful and grim, with dangerously narrowing eyes. The rich, sweet scent touched him somewhere beneath his ice and iron.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t know what I’ve been thinking about, Mex,” he remarked in his usual mild drawl, “to have forgot all about a Christmas present I got to give. I’m going to ride over tomorrow night and shoot Madison Lane in his own house. He got my girl—Rosita would have had me if he hadn’t cut into the game. I wonder why I happened to overlook it up to now?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ah, shucks, Kid,” said Mexican, “don’t talk foolishness. You know you can’t get within a mile of Mad Lane’s house tomorrow night. I see old man Allen day before yesterday, and he says Mad is going to have Christmas doings at his house. You remember how you shot up the festivities when Mad was married, and about the threats you made? Don’t you suppose Mad Lane’ll kind of keep his eye open for a certain <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kid? You plumb make me tired, Kid, with such remarks.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ah, shucks, Kid,” said Mexican, “don’t talk foolishness. You know you can’t get within a mile of Mad Lane’s house tomorrow night. I see old man Allen day before yesterday, and he says Mad is going to have Christmas doings at his house. You remember how you shot up the festivities when Mad was married, and about the threats you made? Don’t you suppose Mad Lane’ll kind of keep his eye open for a certain <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Kid? You plumb make me tired, Kid, with such remarks.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m going,” repeated the Frio Kid, without heat, “to go to Madison Lane’s Christmas doings, and kill him. I ought to have done it a long time ago. Why, Mex, just two weeks ago I dreamed me and Rosita was married instead of her and him; and we was living in a house, and I could see her smiling at me, and—oh! h⸺l, Mex, he got her; and I’ll get him—yes, sir, on Christmas Eve he got her, and then’s when I’ll get him.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There’s other ways of committing suicide,” advised Mexican. “Why don’t you go and surrender to the sheriff?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll get him,” said the Kid.</p>
|
||||
@ -42,12 +42,12 @@
|
||||
<p>The Christmas tree, of course, delighted the youngsters, and above all were they pleased when Santa Claus himself in magnificent white beard and furs appeared and began to distribute the toys.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s my papa,” announced Billy Sampson, aged six. “I’ve seen him wear ’em before.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Berkly, a sheepman, an old friend of Lane, stopped Rosita as she was passing by him on the gallery, where he was sitting smoking.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Lane,” said he, “I suppose by this Christmas you’ve gotten over being afraid of that fellow McRoy, haven’t you? Madison and I have talked about it, you know.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Lane,” said he, “I suppose by this Christmas you’ve gotten over being afraid of that fellow McRoy, haven’t you? Madison and I have talked about it, you know.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Very nearly,” said Rosita, smiling, “but I am still nervous sometimes. I shall never forget that awful time when he came so near to killing us.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s the most cold-hearted villain in the world,” said Berkly. “The citizens all along the border ought to turn out and hunt him down like a wolf.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He has committed awful crimes,” said Rosita, “but—I—don’t—know. I think there is a spot of good somewhere in everybody. He was not always bad—that I know.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Rosita turned into the hallway between the rooms. Santa Claus, in muffling whiskers and furs, was just coming through.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I heard what you said through the window, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Lane,” he said. “I was just going down in my pocket for a Christmas present for your husband. But I’ve left one for you, instead. It’s in the room to your right.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I heard what you said through the window, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Lane,” he said. “I was just going down in my pocket for a Christmas present for your husband. But I’ve left one for you, instead. It’s in the room to your right.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, thank you, kind Santa Claus,” said Rosita, brightly.</p>
|
||||
<p>Rosita went into the room, while Santa Claus stepped into the cooler air of the yard.</p>
|
||||
<p>She found no one in the room but Madison.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -12,13 +12,13 @@
|
||||
<p>The din of the day’s quarrying was over—the blasting and drilling, the creaking of the great cranes, the shouts of the foremen, the backing and shifting of the flatcars hauling the heavy blocks of limestone. Down in the hotel office three or four of the labourers were growling and swearing over a belated game of checkers. Heavy odours of stewed meat, hot grease, and cheap coffee hung like a depressing fog about the house.</p>
|
||||
<p>Lena lit the stump of a candle and sat limply upon her wooden chair. She was eleven years old, thin and ill-nourished. Her back and limbs were sore and aching. But the ache in her heart made the biggest trouble. The last straw had been added to the burden upon her small shoulders. They had taken away Grimm. Always at night, however tired she might be, she had turned to Grimm for comfort and hope. Each time had Grimm whispered to her that the prince or the fairy would come and deliver her out of the wicked enchantment. Every night she had taken fresh courage and strength from Grimm.</p>
|
||||
<p>To whatever tale she read she found an analogy in her own condition. The woodcutter’s lost child, the unhappy goose girl, the persecuted stepdaughter, the little maiden imprisoned in the witch’s hut—all these were but transparent disguises for Lena, the overworked kitchenmaid in the Quarrymen’s Hotel. And always when the extremity was direst came the good fairy or the gallant prince to the rescue.</p>
|
||||
<p>So, here in the ogre’s castle, enslaved by a wicked spell, Lena had leaned upon Grimm and waited, longing for the powers of goodness to prevail. But on the day before <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maloney had found the book in her room and had carried it away, declaring sharply that it would not do for servants to read at night; they lost sleep and did not work briskly the next day. Can one only eleven years old, living away from one’s mamma, and never having any time to play, live entirely deprived of Grimm? Just try it once and you will see what a difficult thing it is.</p>
|
||||
<p>So, here in the ogre’s castle, enslaved by a wicked spell, Lena had leaned upon Grimm and waited, longing for the powers of goodness to prevail. But on the day before <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maloney had found the book in her room and had carried it away, declaring sharply that it would not do for servants to read at night; they lost sleep and did not work briskly the next day. Can one only eleven years old, living away from one’s mamma, and never having any time to play, live entirely deprived of Grimm? Just try it once and you will see what a difficult thing it is.</p>
|
||||
<p>Lena’s home was in Texas, away up among the little mountains on the Pedernales River, in a little town called Fredericksburg. They are all German people who live in Fredericksburg. Of evenings they sit at little tables along the sidewalk and drink beer and play pinochle and scat. They are very thrifty people.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thriftiest among them was Peter Hildesmuller, Lena’s father. And that is why Lena was sent to work in the hotel at the quarries, thirty miles away. She earned three dollars every week there, and Peter added her wages to his well-guarded store. Peter had an ambition to become as rich as his neighbour, Hugo Heffelbauer, who smoked a meerschaum pipe three feet long and had wiener schnitzel and hassenpfeffer for dinner every day in the week. And now Lena was quite old enough to work and assist in the accumulation of riches. But conjecture, if you can, what it means to be sentenced at eleven years of age from a home in the pleasant little Rhine village to hard labour in the ogre’s castle, where you must fly to serve the ogres, while they devour cattle and sheep, growling fiercely as they stamp white limestone dust from their great shoes for you to sweep and scour with your weak, aching fingers. And then—to have Grimm taken away from you!</p>
|
||||
<p>Lena raised the lid of an old empty case that had once contained canned corn and got out a sheet of paper and a piece of pencil. She was going to write a letter to her mamma. Tommy Ryan was going to post it for her at Ballinger’s. Tommy was seventeen, worked in the quarries, went home to Ballinger’s every night, and was now waiting in the shadows under Lena’s window for her to throw the letter out to him. That was the only way she could send a letter to Fredericksburg. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maloney did not like for her to write letters.</p>
|
||||
<p>Lena raised the lid of an old empty case that had once contained canned corn and got out a sheet of paper and a piece of pencil. She was going to write a letter to her mamma. Tommy Ryan was going to post it for her at Ballinger’s. Tommy was seventeen, worked in the quarries, went home to Ballinger’s every night, and was now waiting in the shadows under Lena’s window for her to throw the letter out to him. That was the only way she could send a letter to Fredericksburg. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maloney did not like for her to write letters.</p>
|
||||
<p>The stump of the candle was burning low, so Lena hastily bit the wood from around the lead of her pencil and began. This is the letter she wrote:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dearest Mamma:</span>—I want so much to see you. And Gretel and Claus and Heinrich and little Adolf. I am so tired. I want to see you. Today I was slapped by <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maloney and had no supper. I could not bring in enough wood, for my hand hurt. She took my book yesterday. I mean “Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” which Uncle Leo gave me. It did not hurt anyone for me to read the book. I try to work as well as I can, but there is so much to do. I read only a little bit every night. Dear mamma, I shall tell you what I am going to do. Unless you send for me tomorrow to bring me home I shall go to a deep place I know in the river and drown. It is wicked to drown, I suppose, but I wanted to see you, and there is no one else. I am very tired, and Tommy is waiting for the letter. You will excuse me, mamma, if I do it. <span epub:type="z3998:valediction">Your respectful and loving daughter,</span> <span epub:type="z3998:signature">Lena</span>.</p>
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dearest Mamma:</span>—I want so much to see you. And Gretel and Claus and Heinrich and little Adolf. I am so tired. I want to see you. Today I was slapped by <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maloney and had no supper. I could not bring in enough wood, for my hand hurt. She took my book yesterday. I mean “Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” which Uncle Leo gave me. It did not hurt anyone for me to read the book. I try to work as well as I can, but there is so much to do. I read only a little bit every night. Dear mamma, I shall tell you what I am going to do. Unless you send for me tomorrow to bring me home I shall go to a deep place I know in the river and drown. It is wicked to drown, I suppose, but I wanted to see you, and there is no one else. I am very tired, and Tommy is waiting for the letter. You will excuse me, mamma, if I do it. <span epub:type="z3998:valediction">Your respectful and loving daughter,</span> <span epub:type="z3998:signature">Lena</span>.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>Tommy was still waiting faithfully when the letter was concluded, and when Lena dropped it out she saw him pick it up and start up the steep hillside. Without undressing she blew out the candle and curled herself upon the mattress on the floor.</p>
|
||||
<p>At 10:30 o’clock old man Ballinger came out of his house in his stocking feet and leaned over the gate, smoking his pipe. He looked down the big road, white in the moonshine, and rubbed one ankle with the toe of his other foot. It was time for the Fredericksburg mail to come pattering up the road.</p>
|
||||
@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
|
||||
<p>While the mules were eating from their feed bags old man Ballinger brought out the mail sack and threw it into the wagon.</p>
|
||||
<p>Fritz Bergmann was a man of three sentiments—or to be more accurate—four, the pair of mules deserving to be reckoned individually. Those mules were the chief interest and joy of his existence. Next came the Emperor of Germany and Lena Hildesmuller.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Tell me,” said Fritz, when he was ready to start, “contains the sack a letter to Frau Hildesmuller from the little Lena at the quarries? One came in the last mail to say that she is a little sick, already. Her mamma is very anxious to hear again.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” said old man Ballinger, “thar’s a letter for <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Helterskelter, or some sich name. Tommy Ryan brung it over when he come. Her little gal workin’ over thar, you say?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” said old man Ballinger, “thar’s a letter for <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Helterskelter, or some sich name. Tommy Ryan brung it over when he come. Her little gal workin’ over thar, you say?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“In the hotel,” shouted Fritz, as he gathered up the lines; “eleven years old and not bigger as a frankfurter. The close-fist of a Peter Hildesmuller!—some day I shall with a big club pound that man’s <span xml:lang="de">dummkopf</span>—all in and out the town. Perhaps in this letter Lena will say that she is yet feeling better. So, her mamma will be glad. <span xml:lang="de">Auf wiedersehen</span>, Herr Ballinger—your feets will take cold out in the night air.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“So long, Fritzy,” said old man Ballinger. “You got a nice cool night for your drive.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Up the road went the little black mules at their steady trot, while Fritz thundered at them occasional words of endearment and cheer.</p>
|
||||
@ -46,11 +46,11 @@
|
||||
<p>“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Hondo Bill to the mail-larrier in solemn tones, “to be packing around such a lot of old, trashy paper as this. What d’you mean by it, anyhow? Where do you Dutchers keep your money at?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Ballinger mail sack opened like a cocoon under Hondo’s knife. It contained but a handful of mail. Fritz had been fuming with terror and excitement until this sack was reached. He now remembered Lena’s letter. He addressed the leader of the band, asking that that particular missive be spared.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Much obliged, Dutch,” he said to the disturbed carrier. “I guess that’s the letter we want. Got spondulicks in it, ain’t it? Here she is. Make a light, boys.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Hondo found and tore open the letter to <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Hildesmuller. The others stood about, lighting twisted up letters one from another. Hondo gazed with mute disapproval at the single sheet of paper covered with the angular German script.</p>
|
||||
<p>Hondo found and tore open the letter to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Hildesmuller. The others stood about, lighting twisted up letters one from another. Hondo gazed with mute disapproval at the single sheet of paper covered with the angular German script.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Whatever is this you’ve humbugged us with, Dutchy? You call this here a valuable letter? That’s a mighty low-down trick to play on your friends what come along to help you distribute your mail.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s Chiny writin’,” said Sandy Grundy, peering over Hondo’s shoulder.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’re off your kazip,” declared another of the gang, an effective youth, covered with silk handkerchiefs and nickel plating. “That’s shorthand. I see ’em do it once in court.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ach, no, no, no—dot is German,” said Fritz. “It is no more as a little girl writing a letter to her mamma. One poor little girl, sick and vorking hard avay from home. Ach! it is a shame. Good <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robberman, you vill please let me have dot letter?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ach, no, no, no—dot is German,” said Fritz. “It is no more as a little girl writing a letter to her mamma. One poor little girl, sick and vorking hard avay from home. Ach! it is a shame. Good <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Robberman, you vill please let me have dot letter?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What the devil do you take us for, old Pretzels?” said Hondo with sudden and surprising severity. “You ain’t presumin’ to insinuate that we gents ain’t possessed of sufficient politeness for to take an interest in the miss’s health, are you? Now, you go on, and you read that scratchin’ out loud and in plain United States language to this here company of educated society.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Hondo twirled his six-shooter by its trigger guard and stood towering above the little German, who at once began to read the letter, translating the simple words into English. The gang of rovers stood in absolute silence, listening intently.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How old is that kid?” asked Hondo when the letter was done.</p>
|
||||
@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Tell mamma how you came in Fritz’s wagon,” said Frau Hildesmuller.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t know,” said Lena. “But I know how I got away from the hotel. The Prince brought me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“By the Emperor’s crown!” shouted Fritz, “we are all going crazy.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I always knew he would come,” said Lena, sitting down on her bundle of bedclothes on the sidewalk. “Last night he came with his armed knights and captured the ogre’s castle. They broke the dishes and kicked down the doors. They pitched <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Maloney into a barrel of rain water and threw flour all over <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maloney. The workmen in the hotel jumped out of the windows and ran into the woods when the knights began firing their guns. They wakened me up and I peeped down the stair. And then the Prince came up and wrapped me in the bedclothes and carried me out. He was so tall and strong and fine. His face was as rough as a scrubbing brush, and he talked soft and kind and smelled of schnapps. He took me on his horse before him and we rode away among the knights. He held me close and I went to sleep that way, and didn’t wake up till I got home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I always knew he would come,” said Lena, sitting down on her bundle of bedclothes on the sidewalk. “Last night he came with his armed knights and captured the ogre’s castle. They broke the dishes and kicked down the doors. They pitched <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Maloney into a barrel of rain water and threw flour all over <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maloney. The workmen in the hotel jumped out of the windows and ran into the woods when the knights began firing their guns. They wakened me up and I peeped down the stair. And then the Prince came up and wrapped me in the bedclothes and carried me out. He was so tall and strong and fine. His face was as rough as a scrubbing brush, and he talked soft and kind and smelled of schnapps. He took me on his horse before him and we rode away among the knights. He held me close and I went to sleep that way, and didn’t wake up till I got home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Rubbish!” cried Fritz Bergmann. “Fairy tales! How did you come from the quarries to my wagon?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The Prince brought me,” said Lena, confidently.</p>
|
||||
<p>And to this day the good people of Fredericksburg haven’t been able to make her give any other explanation.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Always have I been on the lookout for the Impossible, always on the trail of the Unattainable. Someday, perhaps, I shall find a sleeping-car with a name that means something, an intelligent West Indian hallboy in a New York apartment building, a boardinghouse whose inmates occasionally smile, a man born in Manhattan, a 60-cent <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</span> that serves six oysters the portion instead of four, a Southerner who leaves you in doubt as to his birthplace longer than ten minutes after the introduction, and myself writing a Christmas story. But that will happen ten days after the millennium, and as the millennium is to be magazineless—</p>
|
||||
<p>Every June I am asked to write a Christmas story. Every August I promise, vow, insist, swear that it shall be ready in two weeks. And every November I protest that I am sorry, but I couldn’t think of anything new and—well, next year, sure. It was so last year and the year before. It was so this year. And I said to myself that next year it would not be so. I would spend Christmas Eve looking about me. I would get copy from a cop, material from a mater, plot from a messenger boy. And behold! it was Christmas Eve.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was Christmas Eve, to give a synopsis of preceding chapters. I will fine-toothcomb the town for an idea next summer, quoth I. And so I walked, rode and taxi-cabbed. I spoke to waiters, subway guards, chauffeurs and newsboys and tried to draw from them some bit of life, some experience that might make a story, a Christmas story, <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">C.O.D.</abbr>, at twenty cents a word. But there was not a syllable in the silly bunch, not a comma in the comatose lot.</p>
|
||||
<p>And then I wandered into Grand Street and I saw that which made me instinctively clutch my fountain pen. A man, unswept, unmoneyed and unstrung, was about to hurl a brick into a pawnbroker’s window. His arm was raised and he was as deliberate as <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tri-Digital Brown of Chicago trying to lessen the average of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> John P. Hanswagner of Pittsburgh. (I always spell Pittsburgh with the final “h”; it’s a final h of a town.)</p>
|
||||
<p>And then I wandered into Grand Street and I saw that which made me instinctively clutch my fountain pen. A man, unswept, unmoneyed and unstrung, was about to hurl a brick into a pawnbroker’s window. His arm was raised and he was as deliberate as <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Tri-Digital Brown of Chicago trying to lessen the average of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> John P. Hanswagner of Pittsburgh. (I always spell Pittsburgh with the final “h”; it’s a final h of a town.)</p>
|
||||
<p>“Here, Bill,” I said, “I wouldn’t do that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, yes, you would,” he responded.</p>
|
||||
<p>Which was my chance. “Let us withdraw to yonder inn,” I said, like a head chorus-man whose object is to “get ’em off,” “and we can discuss things.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Comedy in Rubber</h2>
|
||||
<p>One may hope, in spite of the metaphorists, to avoid the breath of the deadly upas tree; one may, by great good fortune, succeed in blacking the eye of the basilisk; one might even dodge the attentions of Cerberus and Argus, but no man, alive or dead, can escape the gaze of the Rubberer.</p>
|
||||
<p>New York is the Caoutchouc City. There are many, of course, who go their ways, making money, without turning to the right or the left, but there is a tribe abroad wonderfully composed, like the Martians, solely of eyes and means of locomotion.</p>
|
||||
<p>These devotees of curiosity swarm, like flies, in a moment in a struggling, breathless circle about the scene of an unusual occurrence. If a workman opens a manhole, if a street car runs over a man from North Tarrytown, if a little boy drops an egg on his way home from the grocery, if a casual house or two drops into the subway, if a lady loses a nickel through a hole in the lisle thread, if the police drag a telephone and a racing chart forth from an Ibsen Society reading-room, if Senator Depew or <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Chuck Connors walks out to take the air—if any of these incidents or accidents takes place, you will see the mad, irresistible rush of the “rubber” tribe to the spot.</p>
|
||||
<p>These devotees of curiosity swarm, like flies, in a moment in a struggling, breathless circle about the scene of an unusual occurrence. If a workman opens a manhole, if a street car runs over a man from North Tarrytown, if a little boy drops an egg on his way home from the grocery, if a casual house or two drops into the subway, if a lady loses a nickel through a hole in the lisle thread, if the police drag a telephone and a racing chart forth from an Ibsen Society reading-room, if Senator Depew or <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Chuck Connors walks out to take the air—if any of these incidents or accidents takes place, you will see the mad, irresistible rush of the “rubber” tribe to the spot.</p>
|
||||
<p>The importance of the event does not count. They gaze with equal interest and absorption at a chorus girl or at a man painting a liver pill sign. They will form as deep a cordon around a man with a clubfoot as they will around a balked automobile. They have the furor rubberendi. They are optical gluttons, feasting and fattening on the misfortunes of their fellow beings. They gloat and pore and glare and squint and stare with their fishy eyes like goggle-eyed perch at the book baited with calamity.</p>
|
||||
<p>It would seem that Cupid would find these ocular vampires too cold game for his calorific shafts, but have we not yet to discover an immune even among the Protozoa? Yes, beautiful Romance descended upon two of this tribe, and love came into their hearts as they crowded about the prostrate form of a man who had been run over by a brewery wagon.</p>
|
||||
<p>William Pry was the first on the spot. He was an expert at such gatherings. With an expression of intense happiness on his features, he stood over the victim of the accident, listening to his groans as if to the sweetest music. When the crowd of spectators had swelled to a closely packed circle William saw a violent commotion in the crowd opposite him. Men were hurled aside like ninepins by the impact of some moving body that clove them like the rush of a tornado. With elbows, umbrella, hatpin, tongue, and fingernails doing their duty, Violet Seymour forced her way through the mob of onlookers to the first row. Strong men who even had been able to secure a seat on the 5:30 Harlem express staggered back like children as she bucked centre. Two large lady spectators who had seen the Duke of Roxburgh married and had often blocked traffic on Twenty-third Street fell back into the second row with ripped shirtwaists when Violet had finished with them. William Pry loved her at first sight.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,9 +11,9 @@
|
||||
<p>At midnight the café was crowded. By some chance the little table at which I sat had escaped the eye of incomers, and two vacant chairs at it extended their arms with venal hospitality to the influx of patrons.</p>
|
||||
<p>And then a cosmopolite sat in one of them, and I was glad, for I held a theory that since Adam no true citizen of the world has existed. We hear of them, and we see foreign labels on much luggage, but we find travellers instead of cosmopolites.</p>
|
||||
<p>I invoke your consideration of the scene—the marble-topped tables, the range of leather-upholstered wall seats, the gay company, the ladies dressed in demi-state toilets, speaking in an exquisite visible chorus of taste, economy, opulence or art; the sedulous and largess-loving <span xml:lang="fr">garçons</span>, the music wisely catering to all with its raids upon the composers; the mélange of talk and laughter—and, if you will, the Würzburger in the tall glass cones that bend to your lips as a ripe cherry sways on its branch to the beak of a robber jay. I was told by a sculptor from Mauch Chunk that the scene was truly Parisian.</p>
|
||||
<p>My cosmopolite was named <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan, and he will be heard from next summer at Coney Island. He is to establish a new “attraction” there, he informed me, offering kingly diversion. And then his conversation rang along parallels of latitude and longitude. He took the great, round world in his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino cherry in a <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</span> grape fruit. He spoke disrespectfully of the equator, he skipped from continent to continent, he derided the zones, he mopped up the high seas with his napkin. With a wave of his hand he would speak of a certain bazaar in Hyderabad. Whiff! He would have you on skis in Lapland. Zip! Now you rode the breakers with the Kanakas at Kealaikahiki. Presto! He dragged you through an Arkansas post-oak swamp, let you dry for a moment on the alkali plains of his Idaho ranch, then whirled you into the society of Viennese archdukes. Anon he would be telling you of a cold he acquired in a Chicago lake breeze and how old Escamila cured it in Buenos Aires with a hot infusion of the <i xml:lang="es">chuchula</i> weed. You would have addressed a letter to “<abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan, <abbr>Esq.</abbr>, the Earth, Solar System, the Universe,” and have mailed it, feeling confident that it would be delivered to him.</p>
|
||||
<p>My cosmopolite was named <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan, and he will be heard from next summer at Coney Island. He is to establish a new “attraction” there, he informed me, offering kingly diversion. And then his conversation rang along parallels of latitude and longitude. He took the great, round world in his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino cherry in a <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</span> grape fruit. He spoke disrespectfully of the equator, he skipped from continent to continent, he derided the zones, he mopped up the high seas with his napkin. With a wave of his hand he would speak of a certain bazaar in Hyderabad. Whiff! He would have you on skis in Lapland. Zip! Now you rode the breakers with the Kanakas at Kealaikahiki. Presto! He dragged you through an Arkansas post-oak swamp, let you dry for a moment on the alkali plains of his Idaho ranch, then whirled you into the society of Viennese archdukes. Anon he would be telling you of a cold he acquired in a Chicago lake breeze and how old Escamila cured it in Buenos Aires with a hot infusion of the <i xml:lang="es">chuchula</i> weed. You would have addressed a letter to “<abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Esq.</abbr>, the Earth, Solar System, the Universe,” and have mailed it, feeling confident that it would be delivered to him.</p>
|
||||
<p>I was sure that I had found at last the one true cosmopolite since Adam, and I listened to his worldwide discourse fearful lest I should discover in it the local note of the mere globetrotter. But his opinions never fluttered or drooped; he was as impartial to cities, countries and continents as the winds or gravitation.</p>
|
||||
<p>And as <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan prattled of this little planet I thought with glee of a great almost-cosmopolite who wrote for the whole world and dedicated himself to Bombay. In a poem he has to say that there is pride and rivalry between the cities of the earth, and that “the men that breed from them, they traffic up and down, but cling to their cities’ hem as a child to the mother’s gown.” And whenever they walk “by roaring streets unknown” they remember their native city “most faithful, foolish, fond; making her mere-breathed name their bond upon their bond.” And my glee was roused because I had caught <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kipling napping. Here I had found a man not made from dust; one who had no narrow boasts of birthplace or country, one who, if he bragged at all, would brag of his whole round globe against the Martians and the inhabitants of the Moon.</p>
|
||||
<p>And as <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan prattled of this little planet I thought with glee of a great almost-cosmopolite who wrote for the whole world and dedicated himself to Bombay. In a poem he has to say that there is pride and rivalry between the cities of the earth, and that “the men that breed from them, they traffic up and down, but cling to their cities’ hem as a child to the mother’s gown.” And whenever they walk “by roaring streets unknown” they remember their native city “most faithful, foolish, fond; making her mere-breathed name their bond upon their bond.” And my glee was roused because I had caught <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Kipling napping. Here I had found a man not made from dust; one who had no narrow boasts of birthplace or country, one who, if he bragged at all, would brag of his whole round globe against the Martians and the inhabitants of the Moon.</p>
|
||||
<p>Expression on these subjects was precipitated from <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan by the third corner to our table. While Coglan was describing to me the topography along the Siberian Railway the orchestra glided into a medley. The concluding air was “Dixie,” and as the exhilarating notes tumbled forth they were almost overpowered by a great clapping of hands from almost every table.</p>
|
||||
<p>It is worth a paragraph to say that this remarkable scene can be witnessed every evening in numerous cafés in the City of New York. Tons of brew have been consumed over theories to account for it. Some have conjectured hastily that all Southerners in town hie themselves to cafés at nightfall. This applause of the “rebel” air in a Northern city does puzzle a little; but it is not insolvable. The war with Spain, many years’ generous mint and watermelon crops, a few long-shot winners at the New Orleans racetrack, and the brilliant banquets given by the Indiana and Kansas citizens who compose the North Carolina Society have made the South rather a “fad” in Manhattan. Your manicure will lisp softly that your left forefinger reminds her so much of a gentleman’s in Richmond, Va. Oh, certainly; but many a lady has to work now—the war, you know.</p>
|
||||
<p>When “Dixie” was being played a dark-haired young man sprang up from somewhere with a Mosby guerrilla yell and waved frantically his soft-brimmed hat. Then he strayed through the smoke, dropped into the vacant chair at our table and pulled out cigarettes.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -38,8 +38,8 @@
|
||||
<p>“Yes, yes—well—oh, that wasn’t anything,” said Standifer, “hemming” loudly and buttoning his coat again, briskly. “And now, ma’am, who was the infernal skunk—I beg your pardon, ma’am—who was the gentleman you married?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Benton Sharp.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The commissioner plumped down again into his chair, with a groan. This gentle, sad little woman, in the rusty black gown, the daughter of his oldest friend, the wife of Benton Sharp! Benton Sharp, one of the most noted “bad” men in that part of the state—a man who had been a cattle thief, an outlaw, a desperado, and was now a gambler, a swaggering bully, who plied his trade in the larger frontier towns, relying upon his record and the quickness of his gun play to maintain his supremacy. Seldom did anyone take the risk of going “up against” Benton Sharp. Even the law officers were content to let him make his own terms of peace. Sharp was a ready and an accurate shot, and as lucky as a brand-new penny at coming clear from his scrapes. Standifer wondered how this pillaging eagle ever came to be mated with Amos Colvin’s little dove, and expressed his wonder.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp sighed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You see, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer, we didn’t know anything about him, and he can be very pleasant and kind when he wants to. We lived down in the little town of Goliad. Benton came riding down that way, and stopped there a while. I reckon I was some better looking then than I am now. He was good to me for a whole year after we were married. He insured his life for me for five thousand dollars. But for the last six months he has done everything but kill me. I often wish he had done that, too. He got out of money for a while, and abused me shamefully for not having anything he could spend. Then father died, and left me the little home in Goliad. My husband made me sell that, and turned me out into the world. I’ve barely been able to live, for I’m not strong enough to work. Lately, I heard he was making money in San Antonio, so I went there, and found him, and asked for a little help. This,” touching the livid bruise on her temple, “is what he gave me. So I came on to Austin to see the governor. I once heard father say that there was some land, or a pension, coming to him from the state that he never would ask for.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Sharp sighed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You see, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Standifer, we didn’t know anything about him, and he can be very pleasant and kind when he wants to. We lived down in the little town of Goliad. Benton came riding down that way, and stopped there a while. I reckon I was some better looking then than I am now. He was good to me for a whole year after we were married. He insured his life for me for five thousand dollars. But for the last six months he has done everything but kill me. I often wish he had done that, too. He got out of money for a while, and abused me shamefully for not having anything he could spend. Then father died, and left me the little home in Goliad. My husband made me sell that, and turned me out into the world. I’ve barely been able to live, for I’m not strong enough to work. Lately, I heard he was making money in San Antonio, so I went there, and found him, and asked for a little help. This,” touching the livid bruise on her temple, “is what he gave me. So I came on to Austin to see the governor. I once heard father say that there was some land, or a pension, coming to him from the state that he never would ask for.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Luke Standifer rose to his feet, and pushed his chair back. He looked rather perplexedly around the big office, with its handsome furniture.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s a long trail to follow,” he said, slowly, “trying to get back dues from the government. There’s red tape and lawyers and rulings and evidence and courts to keep you waiting. I’m not certain,” continued the commissioner, with a profoundly meditative frown, “whether this department that I’m the boss of has any jurisdiction or not. It’s only Insurance, Statistics, and History, ma’am, and it don’t sound as if it would cover the case. But sometimes a saddle blanket can be made to stretch. You keep your seat, just for a few minutes, ma’am, till I step into the next room and see about it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The state treasurer was seated within his massive, complicated railings, reading a newspaper. Business for the day was about over. The clerks lolled at their desks, awaiting the closing hour. The Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History entered, and leaned in at the window.</p>
|
||||
@ -68,12 +68,12 @@
|
||||
<p>“Your name’s Amanda, isn’t it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought so. I’ve heard your dad say it often enough. Well, Amanda, here’s your father’s best friend, the head of a big office in the state government, that’s going to help you out of your troubles. And here’s the old bushwhacker and cowpuncher that your father has helped out of scrapes time and time again wants to ask you a question. Amanda, have you got money enough to run you for the next two or three days?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp’s white face flushed the least bit.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Sharp’s white face flushed the least bit.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Plenty, sir—for a few days.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right, then, ma’am. Now you go back where you are stopping here, and you come to the office again the day after tomorrow at four o’clock in the afternoon. Very likely by that time there will be something definite to report to you.” The commissioner hesitated, and looked a trifle embarrassed. “You said your husband had insured his life for $5,000. Do you know whether the premiums have been kept paid upon it or not?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He paid for a whole year in advance about five months ago,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp. “I have the policy and receipts in my trunk.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He paid for a whole year in advance about five months ago,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Sharp. “I have the policy and receipts in my trunk.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, that’s all right, then,” said Standifer. “It’s best to look after things of that sort. Some day they may come in handy.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp departed, and soon afterward Luke Standifer went down to the little hotel where he boarded and looked up the railroad timetable in the daily paper. Half an hour later he removed his coat and vest, and strapped a peculiarly constructed pistol holster across his shoulders, leaving the receptacle close under his left armpit. Into the holster he shoved a short-barrelled .44 calibre revolver. Putting on his clothes again, he strolled to the station and caught the five-twenty afternoon train for San Antonio.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Sharp departed, and soon afterward Luke Standifer went down to the little hotel where he boarded and looked up the railroad timetable in the daily paper. Half an hour later he removed his coat and vest, and strapped a peculiarly constructed pistol holster across his shoulders, leaving the receptacle close under his left armpit. Into the holster he shoved a short-barrelled .44 calibre revolver. Putting on his clothes again, he strolled to the station and caught the five-twenty afternoon train for San Antonio.</p>
|
||||
<p>The San Antonio <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Express</i> of the following morning contained this sensational piece of news:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<header>
|
||||
@ -83,14 +83,14 @@
|
||||
<b>The Most Noted Desperado in Southwest Texas Shot to Death in the Gold Front Restaurant—Prominent State Official Successfully Defends Himself Against the Noted Bully—Magnificent Exhibition of Quick Gun Play.</b>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>Last night about eleven o’clock Benton Sharp, with two other men, entered the Gold Front Restaurant and seated themselves at a table. Sharp had been drinking, and was loud and boisterous, as he always was when under the influence of liquor. Five minutes after the party was seated a tall, well-dressed, elderly gentleman entered the restaurant. Few present recognized the Honourable Luke Standifer, the recently appointed Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History.</p>
|
||||
<p>Going over to the same side where Sharp was, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer prepared to take a seat at the next table. In hanging his hat upon one of the hooks along the wall he let it fall upon Sharp’s head. Sharp turned, being in an especially ugly humour, and cursed the other roundly. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer apologized calmly for the accident, but Sharp continued his vituperations. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer was observed to draw near and speak a few sentences to the desperado in so low a tone that no one else caught the words. Sharp sprang up, wild with rage. In the meantime Standifer had stepped some yards away, and was standing quietly with his arms folded across the breast of his loosely hanging coat.</p>
|
||||
<p>With that impetuous and deadly rapidity that made Sharp so dreaded, he reached for the gun he always carried in his hip pocket—a movement that has preceded the death of at least a dozen men at his hands. Quick as the motion was, the bystanders assert that it was met by the most beautiful exhibition of lightning gun-pulling ever witnessed in the Southwest. As Sharp’s pistol was being raised—and the act was really quicker than the eye could follow—a glittering .44 appeared as if by some conjuring trick in the right hand of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer, who, without a perceptible movement of his arm, shot Benton Sharp through the heart. It seems that the new Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History has been an old-time Indian fighter and ranger for many years, which accounts for the happy knack he has of handling a .44.</p>
|
||||
<p>It is not believed that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer will be put to any inconvenience beyond a necessary formal hearing today, as all the witnesses who were present unite in declaring that the deed was done in self-defence.</p>
|
||||
<p>Going over to the same side where Sharp was, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Standifer prepared to take a seat at the next table. In hanging his hat upon one of the hooks along the wall he let it fall upon Sharp’s head. Sharp turned, being in an especially ugly humour, and cursed the other roundly. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Standifer apologized calmly for the accident, but Sharp continued his vituperations. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Standifer was observed to draw near and speak a few sentences to the desperado in so low a tone that no one else caught the words. Sharp sprang up, wild with rage. In the meantime Standifer had stepped some yards away, and was standing quietly with his arms folded across the breast of his loosely hanging coat.</p>
|
||||
<p>With that impetuous and deadly rapidity that made Sharp so dreaded, he reached for the gun he always carried in his hip pocket—a movement that has preceded the death of at least a dozen men at his hands. Quick as the motion was, the bystanders assert that it was met by the most beautiful exhibition of lightning gun-pulling ever witnessed in the Southwest. As Sharp’s pistol was being raised—and the act was really quicker than the eye could follow—a glittering .44 appeared as if by some conjuring trick in the right hand of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Standifer, who, without a perceptible movement of his arm, shot Benton Sharp through the heart. It seems that the new Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History has been an old-time Indian fighter and ranger for many years, which accounts for the happy knack he has of handling a .44.</p>
|
||||
<p>It is not believed that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Standifer will be put to any inconvenience beyond a necessary formal hearing today, as all the witnesses who were present unite in declaring that the deed was done in self-defence.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>When <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp appeared at the office of the commissioner, according to appointment, she found that gentleman calmly eating a golden russet apple. He greeted her without embarrassment and without hesitation at approaching the subject that was the topic of the day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I had to do it, ma’am,” he said, simply, “or get it myself. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kauffman,” he added, turning to the old clerk, “please look up the records of the Security Life Insurance Company and see if they are all right.”</p>
|
||||
<p>When <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Sharp appeared at the office of the commissioner, according to appointment, she found that gentleman calmly eating a golden russet apple. He greeted her without embarrassment and without hesitation at approaching the subject that was the topic of the day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I had to do it, ma’am,” he said, simply, “or get it myself. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Kauffman,” he added, turning to the old clerk, “please look up the records of the Security Life Insurance Company and see if they are all right.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No need to look,” grunted Kauffman, who had everything in his head. “It’s all OK. They pay all losses within ten days.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp soon rose to depart. She had arranged to remain in town until the policy was paid. The commissioner did not detain her. She was a woman, and he did not know just what to say to her at present. Rest and time would bring her what she needed.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Sharp soon rose to depart. She had arranged to remain in town until the policy was paid. The commissioner did not detain her. She was a woman, and he did not know just what to say to her at present. Rest and time would bring her what she needed.</p>
|
||||
<p>But, as she was leaving, Luke Standifer indulged himself in an official remark:</p>
|
||||
<p>“The Department of Insurance, Statistics, and History, ma’am, has done the best it could with your case. ’Twas a case hard to cover according to red tape. Statistics failed, and History missed fire, but, if I may be permitted to say it, we came out particularly strong on Insurance.”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="a-disagreement" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Disagreement</h2>
|
||||
<p>“Dat <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bergman, vot run de obera house, not dread me right,” said a Houston citizen. “Ven I go dere und vant ein dicket to see dot ‘Schpider und dot Vly’ gompany de oder night, I asg him dot he let me in mit half brice, for I was teaf py von ear, and can not but one half of dot performance hear; und he dell me I should bay double brice, as it vould dake me dwice as long to hear de berformance as anypody else.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Dat <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bergman, vot run de obera house, not dread me right,” said a Houston citizen. “Ven I go dere und vant ein dicket to see dot ‘Schpider und dot Vly’ gompany de oder night, I asg him dot he let me in mit half brice, for I was teaf py von ear, and can not but one half of dot performance hear; und he dell me I should bay double brice, as it vould dake me dwice as long to hear de berformance as anypody else.”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“All right, buddy,” said the captain. “I hope your ma won’t blame me for this little childish escapade of yours.” He beckoned to one of the boat’s crew. “Let Sanchez lift you out to the skiff so you won’t get your feet wet.”</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>Thacker, the United States consul at Buenas Tierras, was not yet drunk. It was only eleven o’clock; and he never arrived at his desired state of beatitude—a state wherein he sang ancient maudlin vaudeville songs and pelted his screaming parrot with banana peels—until the middle of the afternoon. So, when he looked up from his hammock at the sound of a slight cough, and saw the Kid standing in the door of the consulate, he was still in a condition to extend the hospitality and courtesy due from the representative of a great nation. “Don’t disturb yourself,” said the Kid, easily. “I just dropped in. They told me it was customary to light at your camp before starting in to round up the town. I just came in on a ship from Texas.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Glad to see you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr>—” said the consul.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Glad to see you, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr>—” said the consul.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Kid laughed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sprague Dalton,” he said. “It sounds funny to me to hear it. I’m called the Llano Kid in the Rio Grande country.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m Thacker,” said the consul. “Take that cane-bottom chair. Now if you’ve come to invest, you want somebody to advise you. These dingies will cheat you out of the gold in your teeth if you don’t understand their ways. Try a cigar?”</p>
|
||||
@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“You haven’t been eating loco weed, have you?” asked the Kid.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sit down again,” said Thacker, “and I’ll tell you. Twelve years ago they lost a kid. No, he didn’t die—although most of ’em here do from drinking the surface water. He was a wild little devil, even if he wasn’t but eight years old. Everybody knows about it. Some Americans who were through here prospecting for gold had letters to Señor Urique, and the boy was a favorite with them. They filled his head with big stories about the States; and about a month after they left, the kid disappeared, too. He was supposed to have stowed himself away among the banana bunches on a fruit steamer, and gone to New Orleans. He was seen once afterward in Texas, it was thought, but they never heard anything more of him. Old Urique has spent thousands of dollars having him looked for. The madam was broken up worst of all. The kid was her life. She wears mourning yet. But they say she believes he’ll come back to her some day, and never gives up hope. On the back of the boy’s left hand was tattooed a flying eagle carrying a spear in his claws. That’s old Urique’s coat of arms or something that he inherited in Spain.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Kid raised his left hand slowly and gazed at it curiously.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s it,” said Thacker, reaching behind the official desk for his bottle of smuggled brandy. “You’re not so slow. I can do it. What was I consul at Sandakan for? I never knew till now. In a week I’ll have the eagle bird with the frog-sticker blended in so you’d think you were born with it. I brought a set of the needles and ink just because I was sure you’d drop in some day, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dalton.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s it,” said Thacker, reaching behind the official desk for his bottle of smuggled brandy. “You’re not so slow. I can do it. What was I consul at Sandakan for? I never knew till now. In a week I’ll have the eagle bird with the frog-sticker blended in so you’d think you were born with it. I brought a set of the needles and ink just because I was sure you’d drop in some day, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Dalton.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, hell,” said the Kid. “I thought I told you my name!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right, ‘Kid,’ then. It won’t be that long. How does Señorito Urique sound, for a change?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I never played son any that I remember of,” said the Kid. “If I had any parents to mention they went over the divide about the time I gave my first bleat. What is the plan of your roundup?”</p>
|
||||
@ -95,14 +95,14 @@
|
||||
<p>“Nothing much,” said the Kid calmly. “I eat my first iguana steak today. They’re them big lizards, you sabe? I reckon, though, that frijoles and side bacon would do me about as well. Do you care for iguanas, Thacker?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, nor for some other kinds of reptiles,” said Thacker.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was three in the afternoon, and in another hour he would be in his state of beatitude.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s time you were making good, sonny,” he went on, with an ugly look on his reddened face. “You’re not playing up to me square. You’ve been the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have had veal for every meal on a gold dish if you’d wanted it. Now, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kid, do you think it’s right to leave me out so long on a husk diet? What’s the trouble? Don’t you get your filial eyes on anything that looks like cash in the Casa Blanca? Don’t tell me you don’t. Everybody knows where old Urique keeps his stuff. It’s <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">U.S.</abbr> currency, too; he don’t accept anything else. What’s doing? Don’t say ‘nothing’ this time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s time you were making good, sonny,” he went on, with an ugly look on his reddened face. “You’re not playing up to me square. You’ve been the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have had veal for every meal on a gold dish if you’d wanted it. Now, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Kid, do you think it’s right to leave me out so long on a husk diet? What’s the trouble? Don’t you get your filial eyes on anything that looks like cash in the Casa Blanca? Don’t tell me you don’t. Everybody knows where old Urique keeps his stuff. It’s <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">U.S.</abbr> currency, too; he don’t accept anything else. What’s doing? Don’t say ‘nothing’ this time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, sure,” said the Kid, admiring his diamond, “there’s plenty of money up there. I’m no judge of collateral in bunches, but I will undertake for to say that I’ve seen the rise of $50,000 at a time in that tin grub box that my adopted father calls his safe. And he lets me carry the key sometimes just to show me that he knows I’m the real little Francisco that strayed from the herd a long time ago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked Thacker, angrily. “Don’t you forget that I can upset your applecart any day I want to. If old Urique knew you were an imposter, what sort of things would happen to you? Oh, you don’t know this country, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Texas Kid. The laws here have got mustard spread between ’em. These people here’d stretch you out like a frog that had been stepped on, and give you about fifty sticks at every corner of the plaza. And they’d wear every stick out, too. What was left of you they’d feed to alligators.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked Thacker, angrily. “Don’t you forget that I can upset your applecart any day I want to. If old Urique knew you were an imposter, what sort of things would happen to you? Oh, you don’t know this country, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Texas Kid. The laws here have got mustard spread between ’em. These people here’d stretch you out like a frog that had been stepped on, and give you about fifty sticks at every corner of the plaza. And they’d wear every stick out, too. What was left of you they’d feed to alligators.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I might just as well tell you now, pardner,” said the Kid, sliding down low on his steamer chair, “that things are going to stay just as they are. They’re about right now.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What do you mean?” asked Thacker, rattling the bottom of his glass on his desk.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The scheme’s off,” said the Kid. “And whenever you have the pleasure of speaking to me address me as Don Francisco Urique. I’ll guarantee I’ll answer to it. We’ll let Colonel Urique keep his money. His little tin safe is as good as the time-locker in the First National Bank of Laredo as far as you and me are concerned.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’re going to throw me down, then, are you?” said the consul.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sure,” said the Kid cheerfully. “Throw you down. That’s it. And now I’ll tell you why. The first night I was up at the colonel’s house they introduced me to a bedroom. No blankets on the floor—a real room, with a bed and things in it. And before I was asleep, in comes this artificial mother of mine and tucks in the covers. ‘Panchito,’ she says, ‘my little lost one, God has brought you back to me. I bless His name forever.’ It was that, or some truck like that, she said. And down comes a drop or two of rain and hits me on the nose. And all that stuck by me, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Thacker. And it’s been that way ever since. And it’s got to stay that way. Don’t you think that it’s for what’s in it for me, either, that I say so. If you have any such ideas, keep ’em to yourself. I haven’t had much truck with women in my life, and no mothers to speak of, but here’s a lady that we’ve got to keep fooled. Once she stood it; twice she won’t. I’m a low-down wolf, and the devil may have sent me on this trail instead of God, but I’ll travel it to the end. And now, don’t forget that I’m Don Francisco Urique whenever you happen to mention my name.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sure,” said the Kid cheerfully. “Throw you down. That’s it. And now I’ll tell you why. The first night I was up at the colonel’s house they introduced me to a bedroom. No blankets on the floor—a real room, with a bed and things in it. And before I was asleep, in comes this artificial mother of mine and tucks in the covers. ‘Panchito,’ she says, ‘my little lost one, God has brought you back to me. I bless His name forever.’ It was that, or some truck like that, she said. And down comes a drop or two of rain and hits me on the nose. And all that stuck by me, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Thacker. And it’s been that way ever since. And it’s got to stay that way. Don’t you think that it’s for what’s in it for me, either, that I say so. If you have any such ideas, keep ’em to yourself. I haven’t had much truck with women in my life, and no mothers to speak of, but here’s a lady that we’ve got to keep fooled. Once she stood it; twice she won’t. I’m a low-down wolf, and the devil may have sent me on this trail instead of God, but I’ll travel it to the end. And now, don’t forget that I’m Don Francisco Urique whenever you happen to mention my name.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll expose you today, you—you double-dyed traitor,” stammered Thacker.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Kid arose and, without violence, took Thacker by the throat with a hand of steel, and shoved him slowly into a corner. Then he drew from under his left arm his pearl-handled .45 and poked the cold muzzle of it against the consul’s mouth.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I told you why I come here,” he said, with his old freezing smile. “If I leave here, you’ll be the reason. Never forget it, pardner. Now, what is my name?”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -45,7 +45,7 @@
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>The words of it they do not understand—neither Toledo nor Memphis, but words are the least important things in life. The music tears the breasts of the seekers after Nepenthe, inciting Toledo to remark:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Those kids of mine—I wonder—by God, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goodall of Memphis, we had too little of that whiskey! No slow music in mine, if you please. It makes you disremember to forget.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Those kids of mine—I wonder—by God, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Goodall of Memphis, we had too little of that whiskey! No slow music in mine, if you please. It makes you disremember to forget.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Hurd of Toledo, here pulls out his watch, and says: “I’m a son of a gun! Got an engagement for a hack ride out to San Pedro Springs at eleven. Forgot it. A fellow from Noo York, and me, and the Castillo sisters at Rhinegelder’s Garden. That Noo York chap’s a lucky dog—got one whole lung—good for a year yet. Plenty of money, too. He pays for everything. I can’t afford—to miss the jamboree. Sorry you ain’t going along. Goodbye, Goodall of Memphis.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He rounds the corner and shuffles away, casting off thus easily the ties of acquaintanceship as the moribund do, the season of dissolution being man’s supreme hour of egoism and selfishness. But he turns and calls back through the fog to the other: “I say, Goodall of Memphis! If you get there before I do, tell ’em Hurd’s a-comin’ too. Hurd, of T’leder, Ah-hia.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus Goodall’s tempter deserts him. That youth, uncomplaining and uncaring, takes a spell at coughing, and, recovered, wanders desultorily on down the street, the name of which he neither knows nor recks. At a certain point he perceives swinging doors, and hears, filtering between them a noise of wind and string instruments. Two men enter from the street as he arrives, and he follows them in. There is a kind of antechamber, plentifully set with palms and cactuses and oleanders. At little marble-topped tables some people sit, while soft-shod attendants bring the beer. All is orderly, clean, melancholy, gay, of the German method of pleasure. At his right is the foot of a stairway. A man there holds out his hand. Goodall extends his, full of silver, the man selects therefrom a coin. Goodall goes upstairs and sees there two galleries extending along the sides of a concert hall which he now perceives to lie below and beyond the anteroom he first entered. These galleries are divided into boxes or stalls, which bestow with the aid of hanging lace curtains, a certain privacy upon their occupants.</p>
|
||||
@ -60,11 +60,11 @@
|
||||
<p>Goodall fillips a little pasteboard box upon the table. “I put ’em all together in there.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Miss Rosa, being a woman, must raise the lid, and gave a slight shiver at the innocent looking triturates. “Horrid things! but those little, white bits—they could never kill one!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Indeed they could. Walter knew better. Nine grains of morphia! Why, half the amount might.</p>
|
||||
<p>Miss Rosa demands to know about <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hurd, of Toledo, and is told. She laughs like a delighted child. “What a funny fellow! But tell me more about your home and your sisters, Walter. I know enough about Texas and tarantulas and cowboys.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Miss Rosa demands to know about <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Hurd, of Toledo, and is told. She laughs like a delighted child. “What a funny fellow! But tell me more about your home and your sisters, Walter. I know enough about Texas and tarantulas and cowboys.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The theme is dear, just now, to his mood, and he lays before her the simple details of a true home; the little ties and endearments that so fill the exile’s heart. Of his sisters, one, Alice, furnishes him a theme he loves to dwell upon.</p>
|
||||
<p>“She is like you, Miss Rosa,” he says. “Maybe not quite so pretty, but, just as nice, and good, and—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There! Walter,” says Miss Rosa sharply, “now talk about something else.”</p>
|
||||
<p>But a shadow falls upon the wall outside, preceding a big, softly treading man, finely dressed, who pauses a second before the curtains and then passes on. Presently comes the waiter with a message: “<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Rolfe says—”</p>
|
||||
<p>But a shadow falls upon the wall outside, preceding a big, softly treading man, finely dressed, who pauses a second before the curtains and then passes on. Presently comes the waiter with a message: “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Rolfe says—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Tell Rolfe I’m engaged.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t know why it is,” says Goodall, of Memphis, “but I don’t feel as bad as I did. An hour ago I wanted to die, but since I’ve met you, Miss Rosa, I’d like so much to live.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The young woman whirls around the table, lays an arm behind his neck and kisses him on the cheek.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,48 +8,48 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="a-ghost-of-a-chance" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Ghost of a Chance</h2>
|
||||
<p>“Actually, a <em>hod</em>!” repeated <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, pathetically.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellamy Bellmore arched a sympathetic eyebrow. Thus she expressed condolence and a generous amount of apparent surprise.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Fancy her telling everywhere,” recapitulated <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, “that she saw a ghost in the apartment she occupied here—our choicest guestroom—a ghost, carrying a hod on its shoulder—the ghost of an old man in overalls, smoking a pipe and carrying a hod! The very absurdity of the thing shows her malicious intent. There never was a Kinsolving that carried a hod. Everyone knows that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kinsolving’s father accumulated his money by large building contracts, but he never worked a day with his own hands. He had this house built from his own plans; but—oh, a hod! Why need she have been so cruel and malicious?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is really too bad,” murmured <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, with an approving glance of her fine eyes about the vast chamber done in lilac and old gold. “And it was in this room she saw it! Oh, no, I’m not afraid of ghosts. Don’t have the least fear on my account. I’m glad you put me in here. I think family ghosts so interesting! But, really, the story does sound a little inconsistent. I should have expected something better from <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins. Don’t they carry bricks in hods? Why should a ghost bring bricks into a villa built of marble and stone? I’m so sorry, but it makes me think that age is beginning to tell upon <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“This house,” continued <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, “was built upon the site of an old one used by the family during the Revolution. There wouldn’t be anything strange in its having a ghost. And there was a Captain Kinsolving who fought in General Greene’s army, though we’ve never been able to secure any papers to vouch for it. If there is to be a family ghost, why couldn’t it have been his, instead of a bricklayer’s?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The ghost of a Revolutionary ancestor wouldn’t be a bad idea,” agreed <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore; “but you know how arbitrary and inconsiderate ghosts can be. Maybe, like love, they are ‘engendered in the eye.’ One advantage of those who see ghosts is that their stories can’t be disproved. By a spiteful eye, a Revolutionary knapsack might easily be construed to be a hod. Dear <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, think no more of it. I am sure it was a knapsack.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But she told everybody!” mourned <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, inconsolable. “She insisted upon the details. There is the pipe. And how are you going to get out of the overalls?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Shan’t get into them,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, with a prettily suppressed yawn; “too stiff and wrinkly. Is that you, Felice? Prepare my bath, please. Do you dine at seven at Clifftop, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving? So kind of you to run in for a chat before dinner! I love those little touches of informality with a guest. They give such a home flavour to a visit. So sorry; I must be dressing. I am so indolent I always postpone it until the last moment.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins had been the first large plum that the Kinsolvings had drawn from the social pie. For a long time, the pie itself had been out of reach on a top shelf. But the purse and the pursuit had at last lowered it. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins was the heliograph of the smart society parading corps. The glitter of her wit and actions passed along the line, transmitting whatever was latest and most daring in the game of peepshow. Formerly, her fame and leadership had been secure enough not to need the support of such artifices as handing around live frogs for favours at a cotillon. But, now, these things were necessary to the holding of her throne. Beside, middle age had come to preside, incongruous, at her capers. The sensational papers had cut her space from a page to two columns. Her wit developed a sting; her manners became more rough and inconsiderate, as if she felt the royal necessity of establishing her autocracy by scorning the conventionalities that bound lesser potentates.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Actually, a <em>hod</em>!” repeated <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, pathetically.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellamy Bellmore arched a sympathetic eyebrow. Thus she expressed condolence and a generous amount of apparent surprise.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Fancy her telling everywhere,” recapitulated <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, “that she saw a ghost in the apartment she occupied here—our choicest guestroom—a ghost, carrying a hod on its shoulder—the ghost of an old man in overalls, smoking a pipe and carrying a hod! The very absurdity of the thing shows her malicious intent. There never was a Kinsolving that carried a hod. Everyone knows that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Kinsolving’s father accumulated his money by large building contracts, but he never worked a day with his own hands. He had this house built from his own plans; but—oh, a hod! Why need she have been so cruel and malicious?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is really too bad,” murmured <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, with an approving glance of her fine eyes about the vast chamber done in lilac and old gold. “And it was in this room she saw it! Oh, no, I’m not afraid of ghosts. Don’t have the least fear on my account. I’m glad you put me in here. I think family ghosts so interesting! But, really, the story does sound a little inconsistent. I should have expected something better from <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins. Don’t they carry bricks in hods? Why should a ghost bring bricks into a villa built of marble and stone? I’m so sorry, but it makes me think that age is beginning to tell upon <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“This house,” continued <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, “was built upon the site of an old one used by the family during the Revolution. There wouldn’t be anything strange in its having a ghost. And there was a Captain Kinsolving who fought in General Greene’s army, though we’ve never been able to secure any papers to vouch for it. If there is to be a family ghost, why couldn’t it have been his, instead of a bricklayer’s?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The ghost of a Revolutionary ancestor wouldn’t be a bad idea,” agreed <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore; “but you know how arbitrary and inconsiderate ghosts can be. Maybe, like love, they are ‘engendered in the eye.’ One advantage of those who see ghosts is that their stories can’t be disproved. By a spiteful eye, a Revolutionary knapsack might easily be construed to be a hod. Dear <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, think no more of it. I am sure it was a knapsack.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But she told everybody!” mourned <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, inconsolable. “She insisted upon the details. There is the pipe. And how are you going to get out of the overalls?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Shan’t get into them,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, with a prettily suppressed yawn; “too stiff and wrinkly. Is that you, Felice? Prepare my bath, please. Do you dine at seven at Clifftop, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving? So kind of you to run in for a chat before dinner! I love those little touches of informality with a guest. They give such a home flavour to a visit. So sorry; I must be dressing. I am so indolent I always postpone it until the last moment.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins had been the first large plum that the Kinsolvings had drawn from the social pie. For a long time, the pie itself had been out of reach on a top shelf. But the purse and the pursuit had at last lowered it. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins was the heliograph of the smart society parading corps. The glitter of her wit and actions passed along the line, transmitting whatever was latest and most daring in the game of peepshow. Formerly, her fame and leadership had been secure enough not to need the support of such artifices as handing around live frogs for favours at a cotillon. But, now, these things were necessary to the holding of her throne. Beside, middle age had come to preside, incongruous, at her capers. The sensational papers had cut her space from a page to two columns. Her wit developed a sting; her manners became more rough and inconsiderate, as if she felt the royal necessity of establishing her autocracy by scorning the conventionalities that bound lesser potentates.</p>
|
||||
<p>To some pressure at the command of the Kinsolvings, she had yielded so far as to honour their house by her presence, for an evening and night. She had her revenge upon her hostess by relating, with grim enjoyment and sarcastic humour, her story of the vision carrying the hod. To that lady, in raptures at having penetrated thus far toward the coveted inner circle, the result came as a crushing disappointment. Everybody either sympathized or laughed, and there was little to choose between the two modes of expression.</p>
|
||||
<p>But, later on, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving’s hopes and spirits were revived by the capture of a second and greater prize.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellamy Bellmore had accepted an invitation to visit at Clifftop, and would remain for three days. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore was one of the younger matrons, whose beauty, descent, and wealth gave her a reserved seat in the holy of holies that required no strenuous bolstering. She was generous enough thus to give <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving the accolade that was so poignantly desired; and, at the same time, she thought how much it would please Terence. Perhaps it would end by solving him.</p>
|
||||
<p>Terence was <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving’s son, aged twenty-nine, quite good-looking enough, and with two or three attractive and mysterious traits. For one, he was very devoted to his mother, and that was sufficiently odd to deserve notice. For others, he talked so little that it was irritating, and he seemed either very shy or very deep. Terence interested <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, because she was not sure which it was. She intended to study him a little longer, unless she forgot the matter. If he was only shy, she would abandon him, for shyness is a bore. If he was deep, she would also abandon him, for depth is precarious.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the afternoon of the third day of her visit, Terence hunted up <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, and found her in a nook actually looking at an album.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s so good of you,” said he, “to come down here and retrieve the day for us. I suppose you have heard that <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins scuttled the ship before she left. She knocked a whole plank out of the bottom with a hod. My mother is grieving herself ill about it. Can’t you manage to see a ghost for us while you are here, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore—a bang-up, swell ghost, with a coronet on his head and a cheque book under his arm?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That was a naughty old lady, Terence,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, “to tell such stories. Perhaps you gave her too much supper. Your mother doesn’t really take it seriously, does she?”</p>
|
||||
<p>But, later on, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving’s hopes and spirits were revived by the capture of a second and greater prize.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellamy Bellmore had accepted an invitation to visit at Clifftop, and would remain for three days. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore was one of the younger matrons, whose beauty, descent, and wealth gave her a reserved seat in the holy of holies that required no strenuous bolstering. She was generous enough thus to give <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving the accolade that was so poignantly desired; and, at the same time, she thought how much it would please Terence. Perhaps it would end by solving him.</p>
|
||||
<p>Terence was <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving’s son, aged twenty-nine, quite good-looking enough, and with two or three attractive and mysterious traits. For one, he was very devoted to his mother, and that was sufficiently odd to deserve notice. For others, he talked so little that it was irritating, and he seemed either very shy or very deep. Terence interested <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, because she was not sure which it was. She intended to study him a little longer, unless she forgot the matter. If he was only shy, she would abandon him, for shyness is a bore. If he was deep, she would also abandon him, for depth is precarious.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the afternoon of the third day of her visit, Terence hunted up <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, and found her in a nook actually looking at an album.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s so good of you,” said he, “to come down here and retrieve the day for us. I suppose you have heard that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins scuttled the ship before she left. She knocked a whole plank out of the bottom with a hod. My mother is grieving herself ill about it. Can’t you manage to see a ghost for us while you are here, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore—a bang-up, swell ghost, with a coronet on his head and a cheque book under his arm?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That was a naughty old lady, Terence,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, “to tell such stories. Perhaps you gave her too much supper. Your mother doesn’t really take it seriously, does she?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I think she does,” answered Terence. “One would think every brick in the hod had dropped on her. It’s a good mammy, and I don’t like to see her worried. It’s to be hoped that the ghost belongs to the hod-carriers’ union, and will go out on a strike. If he doesn’t, there will be no peace in this family.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m sleeping in the ghost-chamber,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, pensively. “But it’s so nice I wouldn’t change it, even if I were afraid, which I’m not. It wouldn’t do for me to submit a counter story of a desirable, aristocratic shade, would it? I would do so, with pleasure, but it seems to me it would be too obviously an antidote for the other narrative to be effective.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m sleeping in the ghost-chamber,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, pensively. “But it’s so nice I wouldn’t change it, even if I were afraid, which I’m not. It wouldn’t do for me to submit a counter story of a desirable, aristocratic shade, would it? I would do so, with pleasure, but it seems to me it would be too obviously an antidote for the other narrative to be effective.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“True,” said Terence, running two fingers thoughtfully into his crisp, brown hair; “that would never do. How would it work to see the same ghost again, minus the overalls, and have gold bricks in the hod? That would elevate the spectre from degrading toil to a financial plane. Don’t you think that would be respectable enough?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There was an ancestor who fought against the Britishers, wasn’t there? Your mother said something to that effect.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I believe so; one of those old chaps in raglan vests and golf trousers. I don’t care a continental for a Continental, myself. But the mother has set her heart on pomp and heraldry and pyrotechnics, and I want her to be happy.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You are a good boy, Terence,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, sweeping her silks close to one side of her, “not to beat your mother. Sit here by me, and let’s look at the album, just as people used to do twenty years ago. Now, tell me about every one of them. Who is this tall, dignified gentleman leaning against the horizon, with one arm on the Corinthian column?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You are a good boy, Terence,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, sweeping her silks close to one side of her, “not to beat your mother. Sit here by me, and let’s look at the album, just as people used to do twenty years ago. Now, tell me about every one of them. Who is this tall, dignified gentleman leaning against the horizon, with one arm on the Corinthian column?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That old chap with the big feet?” inquired Terence, craning his neck. “That’s great-uncle O’Brannigan. He used to keep a rathskeller on the Bowery.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I asked you to sit down, Terence. If you are not going to amuse, or obey, me, I shall report in the morning that I saw a ghost wearing an apron and carrying schooners of beer. Now, that is better. To be shy, at your age, Terence, is a thing that you should blush to acknowledge.”</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>At breakfast on the last morning of her visit, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore startled and entranced everyone present by announcing positively that she had seen the ghost.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did it have a—a—a—?” <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, in her suspense and agitation, could not bring out the word.</p>
|
||||
<p>At breakfast on the last morning of her visit, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore startled and entranced everyone present by announcing positively that she had seen the ghost.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did it have a—a—a—?” <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving, in her suspense and agitation, could not bring out the word.</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, indeed—far from it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>There was a chorus of questions from others at the table. “Weren’t you frightened?” “What did it do?” “How did it look?” “How was it dressed?” “Did it say anything?” “Didn’t you scream?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll try to answer everything at once,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, heroically, “although I’m frightfully hungry. Something awakened me—I’m not sure whether it was a noise or a touch—and there stood the phantom. I never burn a light at night, so the room was quite dark, but I saw it plainly. I wasn’t dreaming. It was a tall man, all misty white from head to foot. It wore the full dress of the old Colonial days—powdered hair, baggy coat skirts, lace ruffles, and a sword. It looked intangible and luminous in the dark, and moved without a sound. Yes, I was a little frightened at first—or startled, I should say. It was the first ghost I had ever seen. No, it didn’t say anything. I didn’t scream. I raised up on my elbow, and then it glided silently away, and disappeared when it reached the door.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving was in the seventh heaven. “The description is that of Captain Kinsolving, of General Greene’s army, one of our ancestors,” she said, in a voice that trembled with pride and relief. “I really think I must apologize for our ghostly relative, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore. I am afraid he must have badly disturbed your rest.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Terence sent a smile of pleased congratulation toward his mother. Attainment was <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving’s, at last, and he loved to see her happy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suppose I ought to be ashamed to confess,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, who was now enjoying her breakfast, “that I wasn’t very much disturbed. I presume it would have been the customary thing to scream and faint, and have all of you running about in picturesque costumes. But, after the first alarm was over, I really couldn’t work myself up to a panic. The ghost retired from the stage quietly and peacefully, after doing its little turn, and I went to sleep again.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nearly all listened, politely accepted <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore’s story as a made-up affair, charitably offered as an offset to the unkind vision seen by <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins. But one or two present perceived that her assertions bore the genuine stamp of her own convictions. Truth and candour seemed to attend upon every word. Even a scoffer at ghosts—if he were very observant—would have been forced to admit that she had, at least in a very vivid dream, been honestly aware of the weird visitor.</p>
|
||||
<p>Soon <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore’s maid was packing. In two hours the auto would come to convey her to the station. As Terence was strolling upon the east piazza, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore came up to him, with a confidential sparkle in her eye.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll try to answer everything at once,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, heroically, “although I’m frightfully hungry. Something awakened me—I’m not sure whether it was a noise or a touch—and there stood the phantom. I never burn a light at night, so the room was quite dark, but I saw it plainly. I wasn’t dreaming. It was a tall man, all misty white from head to foot. It wore the full dress of the old Colonial days—powdered hair, baggy coat skirts, lace ruffles, and a sword. It looked intangible and luminous in the dark, and moved without a sound. Yes, I was a little frightened at first—or startled, I should say. It was the first ghost I had ever seen. No, it didn’t say anything. I didn’t scream. I raised up on my elbow, and then it glided silently away, and disappeared when it reached the door.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving was in the seventh heaven. “The description is that of Captain Kinsolving, of General Greene’s army, one of our ancestors,” she said, in a voice that trembled with pride and relief. “I really think I must apologize for our ghostly relative, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore. I am afraid he must have badly disturbed your rest.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Terence sent a smile of pleased congratulation toward his mother. Attainment was <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kinsolving’s, at last, and he loved to see her happy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suppose I ought to be ashamed to confess,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, who was now enjoying her breakfast, “that I wasn’t very much disturbed. I presume it would have been the customary thing to scream and faint, and have all of you running about in picturesque costumes. But, after the first alarm was over, I really couldn’t work myself up to a panic. The ghost retired from the stage quietly and peacefully, after doing its little turn, and I went to sleep again.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nearly all listened, politely accepted <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore’s story as a made-up affair, charitably offered as an offset to the unkind vision seen by <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fischer-Suympkins. But one or two present perceived that her assertions bore the genuine stamp of her own convictions. Truth and candour seemed to attend upon every word. Even a scoffer at ghosts—if he were very observant—would have been forced to admit that she had, at least in a very vivid dream, been honestly aware of the weird visitor.</p>
|
||||
<p>Soon <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore’s maid was packing. In two hours the auto would come to convey her to the station. As Terence was strolling upon the east piazza, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore came up to him, with a confidential sparkle in her eye.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I didn’t wish to tell the others all of it,” she said, “but I will tell you. In a way, I think you should be held responsible. Can you guess in what manner that ghost awakened me last night?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Rattled chains,” suggested Terence, after some thought, “or groaned? They usually do one or the other.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you happen to know,” continued <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, with sudden irrelevancy, “if I resemble anyone of the female relatives of your restless ancestor, Captain Kinsolving?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you happen to know,” continued <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, with sudden irrelevancy, “if I resemble anyone of the female relatives of your restless ancestor, Captain Kinsolving?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t think so,” said Terence, with an extremely puzzled air. “Never heard of any of them being noted beauties.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then, why,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, looking the young man gravely in the eye, “should that ghost have kissed me, as I’m sure it did?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Heavens!” exclaimed Terence, in wide-eyed amazement; “you don’t mean that, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore! Did he actually kiss you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I said <em>it</em>,” corrected <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore. “I hope the impersonal pronoun is correctly used.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then, why,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, looking the young man gravely in the eye, “should that ghost have kissed me, as I’m sure it did?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Heavens!” exclaimed Terence, in wide-eyed amazement; “you don’t mean that, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore! Did he actually kiss you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I said <em>it</em>,” corrected <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore. “I hope the impersonal pronoun is correctly used.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But why did you say I was responsible?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Because you are the only living male relative of the ghost.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I see. ‘Unto the third and fourth generation.’ But, seriously, did he—did it—how do you—?”</p>
|
||||
@ -57,18 +57,18 @@
|
||||
<p>“Almost?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, I awoke just as—oh, can’t you understand what I mean? When anything arouses you suddenly, you are not positive whether you dreamed, or—and yet you know that—Dear me, Terence, must I dissect the most elementary sensations in order to accommodate your extremely practical intelligence?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But, about kissing ghosts, you know,” said Terence, humbly, “I require the most primary instruction. I never kissed a ghost. Is it—is it—?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The sensation,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, with deliberate, but slightly smiling, emphasis, “since you are seeking instruction, is a mingling of the material and the spiritual.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course,” said Terence, suddenly growing serious, “it was a dream or some kind of an hallucination. Nobody believes in spirits, these days. If you told the tale out of kindness of heart, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, I can’t express how grateful I am to you. It has made my mother supremely happy. That Revolutionary ancestor was a stunning idea.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore sighed. “The usual fate of ghost-seers is mine,” she said, resignedly. “My privileged encounter with a spirit is attributed to lobster salad or mendacity. Well, I have, at least, one memory left from the wreck—a kiss from the unseen world. Was Captain Kinsolving a very brave man, do you know, Terence?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The sensation,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, with deliberate, but slightly smiling, emphasis, “since you are seeking instruction, is a mingling of the material and the spiritual.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course,” said Terence, suddenly growing serious, “it was a dream or some kind of an hallucination. Nobody believes in spirits, these days. If you told the tale out of kindness of heart, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, I can’t express how grateful I am to you. It has made my mother supremely happy. That Revolutionary ancestor was a stunning idea.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore sighed. “The usual fate of ghost-seers is mine,” she said, resignedly. “My privileged encounter with a spirit is attributed to lobster salad or mendacity. Well, I have, at least, one memory left from the wreck—a kiss from the unseen world. Was Captain Kinsolving a very brave man, do you know, Terence?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He was licked at Yorktown, I believe,” said Terence, reflecting. “They say he skedaddled with his company, after the first battle there.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought he must have been timid,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, absently. “He might have had another.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought he must have been timid,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore, absently. “He might have had another.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Another battle?” asked Terence, dully.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What else could I mean? I must go and get ready now; the auto will be here in an hour. I’ve enjoyed Clifftop immensely. Such a lovely morning, isn’t it, Terence?”</p>
|
||||
<p>On her way to the station, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore took from her bag a silk handkerchief, and looked at it with a little peculiar smile. Then she tied it in several very hard knots, and threw it, at a convenient moment, over the edge of the cliff along which the road ran.</p>
|
||||
<p>On her way to the station, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore took from her bag a silk handkerchief, and looked at it with a little peculiar smile. Then she tied it in several very hard knots, and threw it, at a convenient moment, over the edge of the cliff along which the road ran.</p>
|
||||
<p>In his room, Terence was giving some directions to his man, Brooks. “Have this stuff done up in a parcel,” he said, “and ship it to the address on that card.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The card was that of a New York costumer. The “stuff” was a gentleman’s costume of the days of ’76, made of white satin, with silver buckles, white silk stockings, and white kid shoes. A powdered wig and a sword completed the dress.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And look about, Brooks,” added Terence, a little anxiously, “for a silk handkerchief with my initials in one corner. I must have dropped it somewhere.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It was a month later when <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore and one or two others of the smart crowd were making up a list of names for a coaching trip through the Catskills. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore looked over the list for a final censoring. The name of Terence Kinsolving was there. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore ran her prohibitive pencil lightly through the name.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was a month later when <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore and one or two others of the smart crowd were making up a list of names for a coaching trip through the Catskills. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore looked over the list for a final censoring. The name of Terence Kinsolving was there. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellmore ran her prohibitive pencil lightly through the name.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Too shy!” she murmured, sweetly, in explanation.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
|
||||
<article id="a-guarded-secret" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Guarded Secret</h2>
|
||||
<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>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 epub:type="z3998:name-title">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’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>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,57 +9,57 @@
|
||||
<article id="a-harlem-tragedy" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Harlem Tragedy</h2>
|
||||
<p>Harlem.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink had dropped into <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy’s flat one flight below.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ain’t it a beaut?” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy.</p>
|
||||
<p>She turned her face proudly for her friend <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink to see. One eye was nearly closed, with a great, greenish-purple bruise around it. Her lip was cut and bleeding a little and there were red fingermarks on each side of her neck.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My husband wouldn’t ever think of doing that to me,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink, concealing her envy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I wouldn’t have a man,” declared <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy, “that didn’t beat me up at least once a week. Shows he thinks something of you. Say! but that last dose Jack gave me wasn’t no homeopathic one. I can see stars yet. But he’ll be the sweetest man in town for the rest of the week to make up for it. This eye is good for theater tickets and a silk shirt waist at the very least.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I should hope,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink, assuming complacency, “that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fink is too much of a gentleman ever to raise his hand against me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, go on, Maggie!” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy, laughing and applying witch hazel, “you’re only jealous. Your old man is too frappéd and slow to ever give you a punch. He just sits down and practises physical culture with a newspaper when he comes home—now ain’t that the truth?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fink certainly peruses of the papers when he comes home,” acknowledged <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink, with a toss of her head; “but he certainly don’t ever make no Steve O’Donnell out of me just to amuse himself—that’s a sure thing.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy laughed the contented laugh of the guarded and happy matron. With the air of Cornelia exhibiting her jewels, she drew down the collar of her kimono and revealed another treasured bruise, maroon-colored, edged with olive and orange—a bruise now nearly well, but still to memory dear.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink capitulated. The formal light in her eye softened to envious admiration. She and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy had been chums in the downtown paper-box factory before they had married, one year before. Now she and her man occupied the flat above Mame and her man. Therefore she could not put on airs with Mame.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t it hurt when he soaks you?” asked <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink, curiously.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hurt!”—<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy gave a soprano scream of delight. “Well, say—did you ever have a brick house fall on you?—well, that’s just the way it feels—just like when they’re digging you out of the ruins. Jack’s got a left that spells two matinees and a new pair of Oxfords—and his right!—well, it takes a trip to Coney and six pairs of openwork, silk lisle threads to make that good.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But what does he beat you for?” inquired <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink, with wide-open eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Silly!” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy, indulgently. “Why, because he’s full. It’s generally on Saturday nights.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink had dropped into <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy’s flat one flight below.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ain’t it a beaut?” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy.</p>
|
||||
<p>She turned her face proudly for her friend <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink to see. One eye was nearly closed, with a great, greenish-purple bruise around it. Her lip was cut and bleeding a little and there were red fingermarks on each side of her neck.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My husband wouldn’t ever think of doing that to me,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink, concealing her envy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I wouldn’t have a man,” declared <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy, “that didn’t beat me up at least once a week. Shows he thinks something of you. Say! but that last dose Jack gave me wasn’t no homeopathic one. I can see stars yet. But he’ll be the sweetest man in town for the rest of the week to make up for it. This eye is good for theater tickets and a silk shirt waist at the very least.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I should hope,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink, assuming complacency, “that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fink is too much of a gentleman ever to raise his hand against me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, go on, Maggie!” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy, laughing and applying witch hazel, “you’re only jealous. Your old man is too frappéd and slow to ever give you a punch. He just sits down and practises physical culture with a newspaper when he comes home—now ain’t that the truth?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fink certainly peruses of the papers when he comes home,” acknowledged <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink, with a toss of her head; “but he certainly don’t ever make no Steve O’Donnell out of me just to amuse himself—that’s a sure thing.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy laughed the contented laugh of the guarded and happy matron. With the air of Cornelia exhibiting her jewels, she drew down the collar of her kimono and revealed another treasured bruise, maroon-colored, edged with olive and orange—a bruise now nearly well, but still to memory dear.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink capitulated. The formal light in her eye softened to envious admiration. She and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy had been chums in the downtown paper-box factory before they had married, one year before. Now she and her man occupied the flat above Mame and her man. Therefore she could not put on airs with Mame.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t it hurt when he soaks you?” asked <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink, curiously.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hurt!”—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy gave a soprano scream of delight. “Well, say—did you ever have a brick house fall on you?—well, that’s just the way it feels—just like when they’re digging you out of the ruins. Jack’s got a left that spells two matinees and a new pair of Oxfords—and his right!—well, it takes a trip to Coney and six pairs of openwork, silk lisle threads to make that good.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But what does he beat you for?” inquired <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink, with wide-open eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Silly!” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy, indulgently. “Why, because he’s full. It’s generally on Saturday nights.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But what cause do you give him?” persisted the seeker after knowledge.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, didn’t I marry him? Jack comes in tanked up; and I’m here, ain’t I? Who else has he got a right to beat? I’d just like to catch him once beating anybody else! Sometimes it’s because supper ain’t ready; and sometimes it’s because it is. Jack ain’t particular about causes. He just lushes till he remembers he’s married, and then he makes for home and does me up. Saturday nights I just move the furniture with sharp corners out of the way, so I won’t cut my head when he gets his work in. He’s got a left swing that jars you! Sometimes I take the count in the first round; but when I feel like having a good time during the week or want some new rags I come up again for more punishment. That’s what I done last night. Jack knows I’ve been wanting a black silk waist for a month, and I didn’t think just one black eye would bring it. Tell you what, Mag, I’ll bet you the ice cream he brings it tonight.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink was thinking deeply.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink was thinking deeply.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My Mart,” she said, “never hit me a lick in his life. It’s just like you said, Mame; he comes in grouchy and ain’t got a word to say. He never takes me out anywhere. He’s a chair-warmer at home for fair. He buys me things, but he looks so glum about it that I never appreciate ’em.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy slipped an arm around her chum. “You poor thing!” she said. “But everybody can’t have a husband like Jack. Marriage wouldn’t be no failure if they was all like him. These discontented wives you hear about—what they need is a man to come home and kick their slats in once a week, and then make it up in kisses, and chocolate creams. That’d give ’em some interest in life. What I want is a masterful man that slugs you when he’s jagged and hugs you when he ain’t jagged. Preserve me from the man that ain’t got the sand to do neither!”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink sighed.</p>
|
||||
<p>The hallways were suddenly filled with sound. The door flew open at the kick of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cassidy. His arms were occupied with bundles. Mame flew and hung about his neck. Her sound eye sparkled with the love light that shines in the eye of the Maori maid when she recovers consciousness in the hut of the wooer who has stunned and dragged her there.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello, old girl!” shouted <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cassidy. He shed his bundles and lifted her off her feet in a mighty hug. “I got tickets for Barnum & Bailey’s, and if you’ll bust the string of one of them bundles I guess you’ll find that silk waist—why, good evening, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink—I didn’t see you at first. How’s old Mart coming along?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s very well, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cassidy—thanks,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink. “I must be going along up now. Mart’ll be home for supper soon. I’ll bring you down that pattern you wanted tomorrow, Mame.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink went up to her flat and had a little cry. It was a meaningless cry, the kind of cry that only a woman knows about, a cry from no particular cause, altogether an absurd cry; the most transient and the most hopeless cry in the repertory of grief. Why had Martin never thrashed her? He was as big and strong as Jack Cassidy. Did he not care for her at all? He never quarrelled; he came home and lounged about, silent, glum, idle. He was a fairly good provider, but he ignored the spices of life.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink’s ship of dreams was becalmed. Her captain ranged between plum duff and his hammock. If only he would shiver his timbers or stamp his foot on the quarterdeck now and then! And she had thought to sail so merrily, touching at ports in the Delectable Isles! But now, to vary the figure, she was ready to throw up the sponge, tired out, without a scratch to show for all those tame rounds with her sparring partner. For one moment she almost hated Mame—Mame, with her cuts and bruises, her salve of presents and kisses; her stormy voyage with her fighting, brutal, loving mate.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fink came home at 7. He was permeated with the curse of domesticity. Beyond the portals of his cozy home he cared not to roam, to roam. He was the man who had caught the street car, the anaconda that had swallowed its prey, the tree that lay as it had fallen.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Like the supper, Mart?” asked <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink, who had striven over it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“M-m-m-yep,” grunted <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fink.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy slipped an arm around her chum. “You poor thing!” she said. “But everybody can’t have a husband like Jack. Marriage wouldn’t be no failure if they was all like him. These discontented wives you hear about—what they need is a man to come home and kick their slats in once a week, and then make it up in kisses, and chocolate creams. That’d give ’em some interest in life. What I want is a masterful man that slugs you when he’s jagged and hugs you when he ain’t jagged. Preserve me from the man that ain’t got the sand to do neither!”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink sighed.</p>
|
||||
<p>The hallways were suddenly filled with sound. The door flew open at the kick of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cassidy. His arms were occupied with bundles. Mame flew and hung about his neck. Her sound eye sparkled with the love light that shines in the eye of the Maori maid when she recovers consciousness in the hut of the wooer who has stunned and dragged her there.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello, old girl!” shouted <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cassidy. He shed his bundles and lifted her off her feet in a mighty hug. “I got tickets for Barnum & Bailey’s, and if you’ll bust the string of one of them bundles I guess you’ll find that silk waist—why, good evening, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink—I didn’t see you at first. How’s old Mart coming along?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s very well, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cassidy—thanks,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink. “I must be going along up now. Mart’ll be home for supper soon. I’ll bring you down that pattern you wanted tomorrow, Mame.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink went up to her flat and had a little cry. It was a meaningless cry, the kind of cry that only a woman knows about, a cry from no particular cause, altogether an absurd cry; the most transient and the most hopeless cry in the repertory of grief. Why had Martin never thrashed her? He was as big and strong as Jack Cassidy. Did he not care for her at all? He never quarrelled; he came home and lounged about, silent, glum, idle. He was a fairly good provider, but he ignored the spices of life.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink’s ship of dreams was becalmed. Her captain ranged between plum duff and his hammock. If only he would shiver his timbers or stamp his foot on the quarterdeck now and then! And she had thought to sail so merrily, touching at ports in the Delectable Isles! But now, to vary the figure, she was ready to throw up the sponge, tired out, without a scratch to show for all those tame rounds with her sparring partner. For one moment she almost hated Mame—Mame, with her cuts and bruises, her salve of presents and kisses; her stormy voyage with her fighting, brutal, loving mate.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fink came home at 7. He was permeated with the curse of domesticity. Beyond the portals of his cozy home he cared not to roam, to roam. He was the man who had caught the street car, the anaconda that had swallowed its prey, the tree that lay as it had fallen.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Like the supper, Mart?” asked <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink, who had striven over it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“M-m-m-yep,” grunted <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fink.</p>
|
||||
<p>After supper he gathered his newspapers to read. He sat in his stocking feet.</p>
|
||||
<p>Arise, some new Dante, and sing me the befitting corner of perdition for the man who sitteth in the house in his stockinged feet. Sisters of Patience who by reason of ties or duty have endured it in silk, yarn, cotton, lisle thread or woollen—does not the new canto belong?</p>
|
||||
<p>The next day was Labor Day. The occupations of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cassidy and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fink ceased for one passage of the sun. Labor, triumphant, would parade and otherwise disport itself.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink took <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy’s pattern down early. Mame had on her new silk waist. Even her damaged eye managed to emit a holiday gleam. Jack was fruitfully penitent, and there was a hilarious scheme for the day afoot, with parks and picnics and Pilsener in it.</p>
|
||||
<p>A rising, indignant jealousy seized <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink as she returned to her flat above. Oh, happy Mame, with her bruises and her quick-following balm! But was Mame to have a monopoly of happiness? Surely Martin Fink was as good a man as Jack Cassidy. Was his wife to go always unbelabored and uncaressed? A sudden, brilliant, breathless idea came to <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink. She would show Mame that there were husbands as able to use their fists and perhaps to be as tender afterward as any Jack.</p>
|
||||
<p>The holiday promised to be a nominal one with the Finks. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink had the stationary washtubs in the kitchen filled with a two weeks’ wash that had been soaking overnight. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fink sat in his stockinged feet reading a newspaper. Thus Labor Day presaged to speed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Jealousy surged high in <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink’s heart, and higher still surged an audacious resolve. If her man would not strike her—if he would not so far prove his manhood, his prerogative and his interest in conjugal affairs, he must be prompted to his duty.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fink lit his pipe and peacefully rubbed an ankle with a stockinged toe. He reposed in the state of matrimony like a lump of unblended suet in a pudding. This was his level Elysium—to sit at ease vicariously girdling the world in print amid the wifely splashing of suds and the agreeable smells of breakfast dishes departed and dinner ones to come. Many ideas were far from his mind; but the furthest one was the thought of beating his wife.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink turned on the hot water and set the washboards in the suds. Up from the flat below came the gay laugh of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy. It sounded like a taunt, a flaunting of her own happiness in the face of the unslugged bride above. Now was <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink’s time.</p>
|
||||
<p>The next day was Labor Day. The occupations of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cassidy and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fink ceased for one passage of the sun. Labor, triumphant, would parade and otherwise disport itself.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink took <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy’s pattern down early. Mame had on her new silk waist. Even her damaged eye managed to emit a holiday gleam. Jack was fruitfully penitent, and there was a hilarious scheme for the day afoot, with parks and picnics and Pilsener in it.</p>
|
||||
<p>A rising, indignant jealousy seized <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink as she returned to her flat above. Oh, happy Mame, with her bruises and her quick-following balm! But was Mame to have a monopoly of happiness? Surely Martin Fink was as good a man as Jack Cassidy. Was his wife to go always unbelabored and uncaressed? A sudden, brilliant, breathless idea came to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink. She would show Mame that there were husbands as able to use their fists and perhaps to be as tender afterward as any Jack.</p>
|
||||
<p>The holiday promised to be a nominal one with the Finks. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink had the stationary washtubs in the kitchen filled with a two weeks’ wash that had been soaking overnight. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fink sat in his stockinged feet reading a newspaper. Thus Labor Day presaged to speed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Jealousy surged high in <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink’s heart, and higher still surged an audacious resolve. If her man would not strike her—if he would not so far prove his manhood, his prerogative and his interest in conjugal affairs, he must be prompted to his duty.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fink lit his pipe and peacefully rubbed an ankle with a stockinged toe. He reposed in the state of matrimony like a lump of unblended suet in a pudding. This was his level Elysium—to sit at ease vicariously girdling the world in print amid the wifely splashing of suds and the agreeable smells of breakfast dishes departed and dinner ones to come. Many ideas were far from his mind; but the furthest one was the thought of beating his wife.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink turned on the hot water and set the washboards in the suds. Up from the flat below came the gay laugh of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy. It sounded like a taunt, a flaunting of her own happiness in the face of the unslugged bride above. Now was <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink’s time.</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly she turned like a fury upon the man reading.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You lazy loafer!” she cried, “must I work my arms off washing and toiling for the ugly likes of you? Are you a man or are you a kitchen hound?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fink dropped his paper, motionless from surprise. She feared that he would not strike—that the provocation had been insufficient. She leaped at him and struck him fiercely in the face with her clenched hand. In that instant she felt a thrill of love for him such as she had not felt for many a day. Rise up, Martin Fink, and come into your kingdom! Oh, she must feel the weight of his hand now—just to show that he cared—just to show that he cared!</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fink sprang to his feet—Maggie caught him again on the jaw with a wide swing of her other hand. She closed her eyes in that fearful, blissful moment before his blow should come—she whispered his name to herself—she leaned to the expected shock, hungry for it.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the flat below <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cassidy, with a shamed and contrite face was powdering Mame’s eye in preparation for their junket. From the flat above came the sound of a woman’s voice, high-raised, a bumping, a stumbling and a shuffling, a chair overturned—unmistakable sounds of domestic conflict.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mart and Mag scrapping?” postulated <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cassidy. “Didn’t know they ever indulged. Shall I trot up and see if they need a sponge holder?”</p>
|
||||
<p>One of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy’s eyes sparkled like a diamond. The other twinkled at least like paste.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fink dropped his paper, motionless from surprise. She feared that he would not strike—that the provocation had been insufficient. She leaped at him and struck him fiercely in the face with her clenched hand. In that instant she felt a thrill of love for him such as she had not felt for many a day. Rise up, Martin Fink, and come into your kingdom! Oh, she must feel the weight of his hand now—just to show that he cared—just to show that he cared!</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fink sprang to his feet—Maggie caught him again on the jaw with a wide swing of her other hand. She closed her eyes in that fearful, blissful moment before his blow should come—she whispered his name to herself—she leaned to the expected shock, hungry for it.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the flat below <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cassidy, with a shamed and contrite face was powdering Mame’s eye in preparation for their junket. From the flat above came the sound of a woman’s voice, high-raised, a bumping, a stumbling and a shuffling, a chair overturned—unmistakable sounds of domestic conflict.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mart and Mag scrapping?” postulated <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cassidy. “Didn’t know they ever indulged. Shall I trot up and see if they need a sponge holder?”</p>
|
||||
<p>One of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy’s eyes sparkled like a diamond. The other twinkled at least like paste.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, oh,” she said, softly and without apparent meaning, in the feminine ejaculatory manner. “I wonder if—wonder if! Wait, Jack, till I go up and see.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Up the stairs she sped. As her foot struck the hallway above out from the kitchen door of her flat wildly flounced <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, Maggie,” cried <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy, in a delighted whisper; “did he? Oh, did he?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink ran and laid her face upon her chum’s shoulder and sobbed hopelessly.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy took Maggie’s face between her hands and lifted it gently. Tear-stained it was, flushing and paling, but its velvety, pink-and-white, becomingly freckled surface was unscratched, unbruised, unmarred by the recreant fist of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fink.</p>
|
||||
<p>Up the stairs she sped. As her foot struck the hallway above out from the kitchen door of her flat wildly flounced <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, Maggie,” cried <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy, in a delighted whisper; “did he? Oh, did he?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink ran and laid her face upon her chum’s shoulder and sobbed hopelessly.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Cassidy took Maggie’s face between her hands and lifted it gently. Tear-stained it was, flushing and paling, but its velvety, pink-and-white, becomingly freckled surface was unscratched, unbruised, unmarred by the recreant fist of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fink.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Tell me, Maggie,” pleaded Mame, “or I’ll go in there and find out. What was it? Did he hurt you—what did he do?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fink’s face went down again despairingly on the bosom of her friend.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fink’s face went down again despairingly on the bosom of her friend.</p>
|
||||
<p>“For God’s sake don’t open that door, Mame,” she sobbed. “And don’t ever tell nobody—keep it under your hat. He—he never touched me, and—he’s—oh, Gawd—he’s washin’ the clothes—he’s washin’ the clothes!”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -28,11 +28,11 @@
|
||||
<p>“My name is Plumer,” said the highway guest, in harsh and aggressive tones. “If you’re like me, you like to know the name of the party you’re dining with.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was going on to say,” continued Chalmers somewhat hastily, “that mine is Chalmers. Will you sit opposite?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Plumer, of the ruffled plumes, bent his knee for Phillips to slide the chair beneath him. He had an air of having sat at attended boards before. Phillips set out the anchovies and olives.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Good!” barked Plumer; “going to be in courses, is it? All right, my jovial ruler of Bagdad. I’m your Scheherezade all the way to the toothpicks. You’re the first Caliph with a genuine Oriental flavor I’ve struck since frost. What luck! And I was forty-third in line. I finished counting, just as your welcome emissary arrived to bid me to the feast. I had about as much chance of getting a bed tonight as I have of being the next President. How will you have the sad story of my life, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Al Raschid—a chapter with each course or the whole edition with the cigars and coffee?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Good!” barked Plumer; “going to be in courses, is it? All right, my jovial ruler of Bagdad. I’m your Scheherezade all the way to the toothpicks. You’re the first Caliph with a genuine Oriental flavor I’ve struck since frost. What luck! And I was forty-third in line. I finished counting, just as your welcome emissary arrived to bid me to the feast. I had about as much chance of getting a bed tonight as I have of being the next President. How will you have the sad story of my life, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Al Raschid—a chapter with each course or the whole edition with the cigars and coffee?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The situation does not seem a novel one to you,” said Chalmers with a smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“By the chin whiskers of the prophet—no!” answered the guest. “New York’s as full of cheap Haroun al Raschids as Bagdad is of fleas. I’ve been held up for my story with a loaded meal pointed at my head twenty times. Catch anybody in New York giving you something for nothing! They spell curiosity and charity with the same set of building blocks. Lots of ’em will stake you to a dime and chop-suey; and a few of ’em will play Caliph to the tune of a top sirloin; but every one of ’em will stand over you till they screw your autobiography out of you with foot notes, appendix and unpublished fragments. Oh, I know what to do when I see victuals coming toward me in little old Bagdad-on-the-Subway. I strike the asphalt three times with my forehead and get ready to spiel yarns for my supper. I claim descent from the late Tommy Tucker, who was forced to hand out vocal harmony for his predigested wheaterina and spoopju.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I do not ask your story,” said Chalmers. “I tell you frankly that it was a sudden whim that prompted me to send for some stranger to dine with me. I assure you you will not suffer through any curiosity of mine.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, fudge!” exclaimed the guest, enthusiastically tackling his soup; “I don’t mind it a bit. I’m a regular Oriental magazine with a red cover and the leaves cut when the Caliph walks abroad. In fact, we fellows in the bed line have a sort of union rate for things of this sort. Somebody’s always stopping and wanting to know what brought us down so low in the world. For a sandwich and a glass of beer I tell ’em that drink did it. For corned beef and cabbage and a cup of coffee I give ’em the hardhearted-landlord—six-months-in-the-hospital-lost-job story. A sirloin steak and a quarter for a bed gets the Wall Street tragedy of the swept-away fortune and the gradual descent. This is the first spread of this kind I’ve stumbled against. I haven’t got a story to fit it. I’ll tell you what, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Chalmers, I’m going to tell you the truth for this, if you’ll listen to it. It’ll be harder for you to believe than the made-up ones.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, fudge!” exclaimed the guest, enthusiastically tackling his soup; “I don’t mind it a bit. I’m a regular Oriental magazine with a red cover and the leaves cut when the Caliph walks abroad. In fact, we fellows in the bed line have a sort of union rate for things of this sort. Somebody’s always stopping and wanting to know what brought us down so low in the world. For a sandwich and a glass of beer I tell ’em that drink did it. For corned beef and cabbage and a cup of coffee I give ’em the hardhearted-landlord—six-months-in-the-hospital-lost-job story. A sirloin steak and a quarter for a bed gets the Wall Street tragedy of the swept-away fortune and the gradual descent. This is the first spread of this kind I’ve stumbled against. I haven’t got a story to fit it. I’ll tell you what, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Chalmers, I’m going to tell you the truth for this, if you’ll listen to it. It’ll be harder for you to believe than the made-up ones.”</p>
|
||||
<p>An hour later the Arabian guest lay back with a sigh of satisfaction while Phillips brought the coffee and cigars and cleared the table.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did you ever hear of Sherrard Plumer?” he asked, with a strange smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I remember the name,” said Chalmers. “He was a painter, I think, of a good deal of prominence a few years ago.”</p>
|
||||
@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“What was the trouble?” Chalmers could not resist asking.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Funny thing,” answered Plumer, grimly. “Never quite understood it myself. For a while I swam like a cork. I broke into the swell crowd and got commissions right and left. The newspapers called me a fashionable painter. Then the funny things began to happen. Whenever I finished a picture people would come to see it, and whisper and look queerly at one another.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I soon found out what the trouble was. I had a knack of bringing out in the face of a portrait the hidden character of the original. I don’t know how I did it—I painted what I saw—but I know it did me. Some of my sitters were fearfully enraged and refused their pictures. I painted the portrait of a very beautiful and popular society dame. When it was finished her husband looked at it with a peculiar expression on his face, and the next week he sued for divorce.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I remember one case of a prominent banker who sat to me. While I had his portrait on exhibition in my studio an acquaintance of his came in to look at it. ‘Bless me,’ says he, ‘does he really look like that?’ I told him it was considered a faithful likeness. ‘I never noticed that expression about his eyes before,’ said he; ‘I think I’ll drop downtown and change my bank account.’ He did drop down, but the bank account was gone and so was <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Banker.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I remember one case of a prominent banker who sat to me. While I had his portrait on exhibition in my studio an acquaintance of his came in to look at it. ‘Bless me,’ says he, ‘does he really look like that?’ I told him it was considered a faithful likeness. ‘I never noticed that expression about his eyes before,’ said he; ‘I think I’ll drop downtown and change my bank account.’ He did drop down, but the bank account was gone and so was <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Banker.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It wasn’t long till they put me out of business. People don’t want their secret meannesses shown up in a picture. They can smile and twist their own faces and deceive you, but the picture can’t. I couldn’t get an order for another picture, and I had to give up. I worked as a newspaper artist for a while, and then for a lithographer, but my work with them got me into the same trouble. If I drew from a photograph my drawing showed up characteristics and expressions that you couldn’t find in the photo, but I guess they were in the original, all right. The customers raised lively rows, especially the women, and I never could hold a job long. So I began to rest my weary head upon the breast of Old Booze for comfort. And pretty soon I was in the free-bed line and doing oral fiction for handouts among the food bazaars. Does the truthful statement weary thee, O Caliph? I can turn on the Wall Street disaster stop if you prefer, but that requires a tear, and I’m afraid I can’t hustle one up after that good dinner.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, no,” said Chalmers, earnestly, “you interest me very much. Did all of your portraits reveal some unpleasant trait, or were there some that did not suffer from the ordeal of your peculiar brush?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Some? Yes,” said Plumer. “Children generally, a good many women and a sufficient number of men. All people aren’t bad, you know. When they were all right the pictures were all right. As I said, I don’t explain it, but I’m telling you facts.”</p>
|
||||
@ -49,11 +49,11 @@
|
||||
<p>Chalmers went as far as the door with him and slipped some bills into his hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh! I’ll take ’em,” said Plumer. “All that’s included in the fall. Thanks. And for the very good dinner. I shall sleep on feathers tonight and dream of Bagdad. I hope it won’t turn out to be a dream in the morning. Farewell, most excellent Caliph!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Again Chalmers paced restlessly upon his rug. But his beat lay as far from the table whereon lay the pastel sketch as the room would permit. Twice, thrice, he tried to approach it, but failed. He could see the dun and gold and brown of the colors, but there was a wall about it built by his fears that kept him at a distance. He sat down and tried to calm himself. He sprang up and rang for Phillips.</p>
|
||||
<p>“There is a young artist in this building,” he said. “—a <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Reineman—do you know which is his apartment?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There is a young artist in this building,” he said. “—a <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Reineman—do you know which is his apartment?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Top floor, front, sir,” said Phillips.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Go up and ask him to favor me with his presence here for a few minutes.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Reineman came at once. Chalmers introduced himself.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Reineman,” said he, “there is a little pastel sketch on yonder table. I would be glad if you will give me your opinion of it as to its artistic merits and as a picture.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Reineman,” said he, “there is a little pastel sketch on yonder table. I would be glad if you will give me your opinion of it as to its artistic merits and as a picture.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The young artist advanced to the table and took up the sketch. Chalmers half turned away, leaning upon the back of a chair.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How—do—you find it?” he asked, slowly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“As a drawing,” said the artist, “I can’t praise it enough. It’s the work of a master—bold and fine and true. It puzzles me a little; I haven’t seen any pastel work near as good in years.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -12,12 +12,12 @@
|
||||
<p>At Macuto, on the coast of Venezuela, the company scored its greatest success. Imagine Coney Island translated into Spanish and you will comprehend Macuto. The fashionable season is from November to March. Down from La Guayra and Caracas and Valencia and other interior towns flock the people for their holiday season. There are bathing and fiestas and bull fights and scandal. And then the people have a passion for music that the bands in the plaza and on the sea beach stir but do not satisfy. The coming of the Alcazar Opera Company aroused the utmost ardour and zeal among the pleasure seekers.</p>
|
||||
<p>The illustrious Guzman Blanco, President and Dictator of Venezuela, sojourned in Macuto with his court for the season. That potent ruler—who himself paid a subsidy of 40,000 pesos each year to grand opera in Caracas—ordered one of the Government warehouses to be cleared for a temporary theatre. A stage was quickly constructed and rough wooden benches made for the audience. Private boxes were added for the use of the President and the notables of the army and Government.</p>
|
||||
<p>The company remained in Macuto for two weeks. Each performance filled the house as closely as it could be packed. Then the music-mad people fought for room in the open doors and windows, and crowded about, hundreds deep, on the outside. Those audiences formed a brilliantly diversified patch of colour. The hue of their faces ranged from the clear olive of the pure-blood Spaniards down through the yellow and brown shades of the Mestizos to the coal-black Carib and the Jamaica Negro. Scattered among them were little groups of Indians with faces like stone idols, wrapped in gaudy fibre-woven blankets—Indians down from the mountain states of Zamora and Los Andes and Miranda to trade their gold dust in the coast towns.</p>
|
||||
<p>The spell cast upon these denizens of the interior fastnesses was remarkable. They sat in petrified ecstasy, conspicuous among the excitable Macutians, who wildly strove with tongue and hand to give evidence of their delight. Only once did the sombre rapture of these aboriginals find expression. During the rendition of “Faust,” Guzman Blanco, extravagantly pleased by the “Jewel Song,” cast upon the stage a purse of gold pieces. Other distinguished citizens followed his lead to the extent of whatever loose coin they had convenient, while some of the fair and fashionable señoras were moved, in imitation, to fling a jewel or a ring or two at the feet of the Marguerite—who was, according to the bills, <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Nina Giraud. Then, from different parts of the house rose sundry of the stolid hillmen and cast upon the stage little brown and dun bags that fell with soft “thumps” and did not rebound. It was, no doubt, pleasure at the tribute to her art that caused <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Giraud’s eyes to shine so brightly when she opened these little deerskin bags in her dressing room and found them to contain pure gold dust. If so, the pleasure was rightly hers, for her voice in song, pure, strong and thrilling with the feeling of the emotional artist, deserved the tribute that it earned.</p>
|
||||
<p>The spell cast upon these denizens of the interior fastnesses was remarkable. They sat in petrified ecstasy, conspicuous among the excitable Macutians, who wildly strove with tongue and hand to give evidence of their delight. Only once did the sombre rapture of these aboriginals find expression. During the rendition of “Faust,” Guzman Blanco, extravagantly pleased by the “Jewel Song,” cast upon the stage a purse of gold pieces. Other distinguished citizens followed his lead to the extent of whatever loose coin they had convenient, while some of the fair and fashionable señoras were moved, in imitation, to fling a jewel or a ring or two at the feet of the Marguerite—who was, according to the bills, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Nina Giraud. Then, from different parts of the house rose sundry of the stolid hillmen and cast upon the stage little brown and dun bags that fell with soft “thumps” and did not rebound. It was, no doubt, pleasure at the tribute to her art that caused <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Giraud’s eyes to shine so brightly when she opened these little deerskin bags in her dressing room and found them to contain pure gold dust. If so, the pleasure was rightly hers, for her voice in song, pure, strong and thrilling with the feeling of the emotional artist, deserved the tribute that it earned.</p>
|
||||
<p>But the triumph of the Alcazar Opera Company is not the theme—it but leans upon and colours it. There happened in Macuto a tragic thing, an unsolvable mystery, that sobered for a time the gaiety of the happy season.</p>
|
||||
<p>One evening between the short twilight and the time when she should have whirled upon the stage in the red and black of the ardent Carmen, <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Nina Giraud disappeared from the sight and ken of 6,000 pairs of eyes and as many minds in Macuto. There was the usual turmoil and hurrying to seek her. Messengers flew to the little French-kept hotel where she stayed; others of the company hastened here or there where she might be lingering in some tienda or unduly prolonging her bath upon the beach. All search was fruitless. Mademoiselle had vanished.</p>
|
||||
<p>One evening between the short twilight and the time when she should have whirled upon the stage in the red and black of the ardent Carmen, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Nina Giraud disappeared from the sight and ken of 6,000 pairs of eyes and as many minds in Macuto. There was the usual turmoil and hurrying to seek her. Messengers flew to the little French-kept hotel where she stayed; others of the company hastened here or there where she might be lingering in some tienda or unduly prolonging her bath upon the beach. All search was fruitless. Mademoiselle had vanished.</p>
|
||||
<p>Half an hour passed and she did not appear. The dictator, unused to the caprices of prime donne, became impatient. He sent an aide from his box to say to the manager that if the curtain did not at once rise he would immediately hale the entire company to the calabosa, though it would desolate his heart, indeed, to be compelled to such an act. Birds in Macuto could be made to sing.</p>
|
||||
<p>The manager abandoned hope for the time of <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Giraud. A member of the chorus, who had dreamed hopelessly for years of the blessed opportunity, quickly Carmenized herself and the opera went on.</p>
|
||||
<p>Afterward, when the lost cantatrice appeared not, the aid of the authorities was invoked. The President at once set the army, the police and all citizens to the search. Not one clue to <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Giraud’s disappearance was found. The Alcazar left to fill engagements farther down the coast.</p>
|
||||
<p>The manager abandoned hope for the time of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Giraud. A member of the chorus, who had dreamed hopelessly for years of the blessed opportunity, quickly Carmenized herself and the opera went on.</p>
|
||||
<p>Afterward, when the lost cantatrice appeared not, the aid of the authorities was invoked. The President at once set the army, the police and all citizens to the search. Not one clue to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Giraud’s disappearance was found. The Alcazar left to fill engagements farther down the coast.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the way back the steamer stopped at Macuto and the manager made anxious inquiry. Not a trace of the lady had been discovered. The Alcazar could do no more. The personal belongings of the missing lady were stored in the hotel against her possible later reappearance and the opera company continued upon its homeward voyage to New Orleans.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>On the camino real along the beach the two saddle mules and the four pack mules of Don Señor Johnny Armstrong stood, patiently awaiting the crack of the whip of the arriero, Luis. That would be the signal for the start on another long journey into the mountains. The pack mules were loaded with a varied assortment of hardware and cutlery. These articles Don Johnny traded to the interior Indians for the gold dust that they washed from the Andean streams and stored in quills and bags against his coming. It was a profitable business, and Señor Armstrong expected soon to be able to purchase the coffee plantation that he coveted.</p>
|
||||
@ -35,23 +35,23 @@
|
||||
<p>The woman was worthy of his boldness. Only by a sudden flush of her pale cheek did she acknowledge understanding of his words. Then she spoke, scarcely moving her lips.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am held a prisoner by these Indians. God knows I need help. In two hours come to the little hut twenty yards toward the Mountainside. There will be a light and a red curtain in the window. There is always a guard at the door, whom you will have to overcome. For the love of heaven, do not fail to come.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The story seems to shrink from adventure and rescue and mystery. The theme is one too gentle for those brave and quickening tones. And yet it reaches as far back as time itself. It has been named “environment,” which is as weak a word as any to express the unnameable kinship of man to nature, that queer fraternity that causes stones and trees and salt water and clouds to play upon our emotions. Why are we made serious and solemn and sublime by mountain heights, grave and contemplative by an abundance of overhanging trees, reduced to inconstancy and monkey capers by the ripples on a sandy beach? Did the protoplasm—but enough. The chemists are looking into the matter, and before long they will have all life in the table of the symbols.</p>
|
||||
<p>Briefly, then, in order to confine the story within scientific bounds, John Armstrong, went to the hut, choked the Indian guard and carried away <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Giraud. With her was also conveyed a number of pounds of gold dust she had collected during her six months’ forced engagement in Tacuzama. The Carabobo Indians are easily the most enthusiastic lovers of music between the equator and the French Opera House in New Orleans. They are also strong believers that the advice of Emerson was good when he said: “The thing thou wantest, O discontented man—take it, and pay the price.” A number of them had attended the performance of the Alcazar Opera Company in Macuto, and found <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Giraud’s style and technique satisfactory. They wanted her, so they took her one evening suddenly and without any fuss. They treated her with much consideration, exacting only one song recital each day. She was quite pleased at being rescued by <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Armstrong. So much for mystery and adventure. Now to resume the theory of the protoplasm.</p>
|
||||
<p>John Armstrong and <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Giraud rode among the Andean peaks, enveloped in their greatness and sublimity. The mightiest cousins, furthest removed, in nature’s great family become conscious of the tie. Among those huge piles of primordial upheaval, amid those gigantic silences and elongated fields of distance the littlenesses of men are precipitated as one chemical throws down a sediment from another. They moved reverently, as in a temple. Their souls were uplifted in unison with the stately heights. They travelled in a zone of majesty and peace.</p>
|
||||
<p>Briefly, then, in order to confine the story within scientific bounds, John Armstrong, went to the hut, choked the Indian guard and carried away <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Giraud. With her was also conveyed a number of pounds of gold dust she had collected during her six months’ forced engagement in Tacuzama. The Carabobo Indians are easily the most enthusiastic lovers of music between the equator and the French Opera House in New Orleans. They are also strong believers that the advice of Emerson was good when he said: “The thing thou wantest, O discontented man—take it, and pay the price.” A number of them had attended the performance of the Alcazar Opera Company in Macuto, and found <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Giraud’s style and technique satisfactory. They wanted her, so they took her one evening suddenly and without any fuss. They treated her with much consideration, exacting only one song recital each day. She was quite pleased at being rescued by <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Armstrong. So much for mystery and adventure. Now to resume the theory of the protoplasm.</p>
|
||||
<p>John Armstrong and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Giraud rode among the Andean peaks, enveloped in their greatness and sublimity. The mightiest cousins, furthest removed, in nature’s great family become conscious of the tie. Among those huge piles of primordial upheaval, amid those gigantic silences and elongated fields of distance the littlenesses of men are precipitated as one chemical throws down a sediment from another. They moved reverently, as in a temple. Their souls were uplifted in unison with the stately heights. They travelled in a zone of majesty and peace.</p>
|
||||
<p>To Armstrong the woman seemed almost a holy thing. Yet bathed in the white, still dignity of her martyrdom that purified her earthly beauty and gave out, it seemed, an aura of transcendent loveliness, in those first hours of companionship she drew from him an adoration that was half human love, half the worship of a descended goddess.</p>
|
||||
<p>Never yet since her rescue had she smiled. Over her dress she still wore the robe of leopard skins, for the mountain air was cold. She looked to be some splendid princess belonging to those wild and awesome altitudes. The spirit of the region chimed with hers. Her eyes were always turned upon the sombre cliffs, the blue gorges and the snow-clad turrets, looking a sublime melancholy equal to their own. At times on the journey she sang thrilling te deums and misereres that struck the true note of the hills, and made their route seem like a solemn march down a cathedral aisle. The rescued one spoke but seldom, her mood partaking of the hush of nature that surrounded them. Armstrong looked upon her as an angel. He could not bring himself to the sacrilege of attempting to woo her as other women may be wooed.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the third day they had descended as far as the <span xml:lang="es">tierra templada</span>, the zona of the table lands and foot hills. The mountains were receding in their rear, but still towered, exhibiting yet impressively their formidable heads. Here they met signs of man. They saw the white houses of coffee plantations gleam across the clearings. They struck into a road where they met travellers and pack-mules. Cattle were grazing on the slopes. They passed a little village where the round-eyed <i xml:lang="es">niños</i> shrieked and called at sight of them.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Giraud laid aside her leopard-skin robe. It seemed to be a trifle incongruous now. In the mountains it had appeared fitting and natural. And if Armstrong was not mistaken she laid aside with it something of the high dignity of her demeanour. As the country became more populous and significant of comfortable life he saw, with a feeling of joy, that the exalted princess and priestess of the Andean peaks was changing to a woman—an earth woman, but no less enticing. A little colour crept to the surface of her marble cheek. She arranged the conventional dress that the removal of the robe now disclosed with the solicitous touch of one who is conscious of the eyes of others. She smoothed the careless sweep of her hair. A mundane interest, long latent in the chilling atmosphere of the ascetic peaks, showed in her eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Giraud laid aside her leopard-skin robe. It seemed to be a trifle incongruous now. In the mountains it had appeared fitting and natural. And if Armstrong was not mistaken she laid aside with it something of the high dignity of her demeanour. As the country became more populous and significant of comfortable life he saw, with a feeling of joy, that the exalted princess and priestess of the Andean peaks was changing to a woman—an earth woman, but no less enticing. A little colour crept to the surface of her marble cheek. She arranged the conventional dress that the removal of the robe now disclosed with the solicitous touch of one who is conscious of the eyes of others. She smoothed the careless sweep of her hair. A mundane interest, long latent in the chilling atmosphere of the ascetic peaks, showed in her eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>This thaw in his divinity sent Armstrong’s heart going faster. So might an Arctic explorer thrill at his first ken of green fields and liquescent waters. They were on a lower plane of earth and life and were succumbing to its peculiar, subtle influence. The austerity of the hills no longer thinned the air they breathed. About them was the breath of fruit and corn and builded homes, the comfortable smell of smoke and warm earth and the consolations man has placed between himself and the dust of his brother earth from which he sprung. While traversing those awful mountains, Mile. Giraud had seemed to be wrapped in their spirit of reverent reserve. Was this that same woman—now palpitating, warm, eager, throbbing with conscious life and charm, feminine to her fingertips? Pondering over this, Armstrong felt certain misgivings intrude upon his thoughts. He wished he could stop there with this changing creature, descending no farther. Here was the elevation and environment to which her nature seemed to respond with its best. He feared to go down upon the man-dominated levels. Would her spirit not yield still further in that artificial zone to which they were descending?</p>
|
||||
<p>Now from a little plateau they saw the sea flash at the edge of the green lowlands. Mile. Giraud gave a little, catching sigh.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh! look, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Armstrong, there is the sea! Isn’t it lovely? I’m so tired of mountains.” She heaved a pretty shoulder in a gesture of repugnance. “Those horrid Indians! Just think of what I suffered! Although I suppose I attained my ambition of becoming a stellar attraction, I wouldn’t care to repeat the engagement. It was very nice of you to bring me away. Tell me, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Armstrong—honestly, now—do I look such an awful, awful fright? I haven’t looked into a mirror, you know, for months.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh! look, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Armstrong, there is the sea! Isn’t it lovely? I’m so tired of mountains.” She heaved a pretty shoulder in a gesture of repugnance. “Those horrid Indians! Just think of what I suffered! Although I suppose I attained my ambition of becoming a stellar attraction, I wouldn’t care to repeat the engagement. It was very nice of you to bring me away. Tell me, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Armstrong—honestly, now—do I look such an awful, awful fright? I haven’t looked into a mirror, you know, for months.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Armstrong made answer according to his changed moods. Also he laid his hand upon hers as it rested upon the horn of her saddle. Luis was at the head of the pack train and could not see. She allowed it to remain there, and her eyes smiled frankly into his.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then at sundown they dropped upon the coast level under the palms and lemons among the vivid greens and scarlets and ochres of the <span xml:lang="es">tierra caliente</span>. They rode into Macuto, and saw the line of volatile bathers frolicking in the surf. The mountains were very far away.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Giraud’s eyes were shining with a joy that could not have existed under the chaperonage of the mountain-tops. There were other spirits calling to her—nymphs of the orange groves, pixies from the chattering surf, imps, born of the music, the perfumes, colours and the insinuating presence of humanity. She laughed aloud, musically, at a sudden thought.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Giraud’s eyes were shining with a joy that could not have existed under the chaperonage of the mountain-tops. There were other spirits calling to her—nymphs of the orange groves, pixies from the chattering surf, imps, born of the music, the perfumes, colours and the insinuating presence of humanity. She laughed aloud, musically, at a sudden thought.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Won’t there be a sensation?” she called to Armstrong. “Don’t I wish I had an engagement just now, though! What a picnic the press agent would have! ‘Held a prisoner by a band of savage Indians subdued by the spell of her wonderful voice’—wouldn’t that make great stuff? But I guess I quit the game winner, anyhow—there ought to be a couple of thousand dollars in that sack of gold dust I collected as encores, don’t you think?”</p>
|
||||
<p>He left her at the door of the little Hotel de Buen Descansar, where she had stopped before. Two hours later he returned to the hotel. He glanced in at the open door of the little combined reception room and café.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>Half a dozen of Macuto’s representative social and official caballeros were distributed about the room. Señor Villablanca, the wealthy rubber concessionist, reposed his fat figure on two chairs, with an emollient smile beaming upon his chocolate-coloured face. Guilbert, the French mining engineer, leered through his polished nose-glasses. Colonel Mendez, of the regular army, in gold-laced uniform and fatuous grin, was busily extracting corks from champagne bottles. Other patterns of Macutian gallantry and fashion pranced and posed. The air was hazy with cigarette smoke. Wine dripped upon the floor.</p>
|
||||
<p>Perched upon a table in the centre of the room in an attitude of easy preeminence was <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Giraud. A chic costume of white lawn and cherry ribbons supplanted her travelling garb. There was a suggestion of lace, and a frill or two, with a discreet, small implication of hand-embroidered pink hosiery. Upon her lap rested a guitar. In her face was the light of resurrection, the peace of elysium attained through fire and suffering. She was singing to a lively accompaniment a little song:</p>
|
||||
<p>Perched upon a table in the centre of the room in an attitude of easy preeminence was <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Giraud. A chic costume of white lawn and cherry ribbons supplanted her travelling garb. There was a suggestion of lace, and a frill or two, with a discreet, small implication of hand-embroidered pink hosiery. Upon her lap rested a guitar. In her face was the light of resurrection, the peace of elysium attained through fire and suffering. She was singing to a lively accompaniment a little song:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:song">
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<span>“When you see de big round moon</span>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -50,7 +50,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“If I could be your true knight always,” began Gaines, but Miss Mary laughed him dumb, for Compton scrambled over the edge of the rock one minute behind time.</p>
|
||||
<p>What a twilight that was when they drove back to the hotel! The opal of the valley turned slowly to purple, the dark woods framed the lake as a mirror, the tonic air stirred the very soul in one. The first pale stars came out over the mountain tops where yet a faint glow of—</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>“I beg your pardon, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gaines,” said Adkins.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I beg your pardon, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gaines,” said Adkins.</p>
|
||||
<p>The man who believed New York to be the finest summer resort in the world opened his eyes and kicked over the mucilage bottle on his desk.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I—I believe I was asleep,” he said.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s the heat,” said Adkins. “It’s something awful in the city these—”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="a-midsummer-masquerade" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Midsummer Masquerade</h2>
|
||||
<p>“Satan,” said Jeff Peters, “is a hard boss to work for. When other people are having their vacation is when he keeps you the busiest. As old <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Watts or <abbr>St.</abbr> Paul or some other diagnostician says: ‘He always finds somebody for idle hands to do.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Satan,” said Jeff Peters, “is a hard boss to work for. When other people are having their vacation is when he keeps you the busiest. As old <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Watts or <abbr>St.</abbr> Paul or some other diagnostician says: ‘He always finds somebody for idle hands to do.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I remember one summer when me and my partner, Andy Tucker, tried to take a layoff from our professional and business duties; but it seems that our work followed us wherever we went.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, with a preacher it’s different. He can throw off his responsibilities and enjoy himself. On the 31st of May he wraps mosquito netting and tin foil around the pulpit, grabs his niblick, breviary and fishing pole and hikes for Lake Como or Atlantic City according to the size of the loudness with which he has been called by his congregation. And, sir, for three months he don’t have to think about business except to hunt around in Deuteronomy and Proverbs and Timothy to find texts to cover and exculpate such little midsummer penances as dropping a couple of looey door on rouge or teaching a Presbyterian widow to swim.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But I was going to tell you about mine and Andy’s summer vacation that wasn’t one.</p>
|
||||
@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“We was directed to a kind of private hotel called Woodchuck Inn, and thither me and Andy bent and almost broke our footsteps over the rocks and stumps. The Inn set back from the road in a big grove of trees, and it looked fine with its broad porches and a lot of women in white dresses rocking in the shade. The rest of Crow Knob was a post office and some scenery set an angle of forty-five degrees and a welkin.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, sir, when we got to the gate who do you suppose comes down the walk to greet us? Old Smoke-’em-out Smithers, who used to be the best open air painless dentist and electric liver pad faker in the Southwest.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Old Smoke-’em-out is dressed clerico-rural, and has the mingled air of a landlord and a claim jumper. Which aspect he corroborates by telling us that he is the host and perpetrator of Woodchuck Inn. I introduces Andy, and we talk about a few volatile topics, such as will go around at meetings of boards of directors and old associates like us three were. Old Smoke-’em-out leads us into a kind of summer house in the yard near the gate and took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with his mighty right.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Gents,’ says he, ‘I’m glad to see you. Maybe you can help me out of a scrape. I’m getting a bit old for street work, so I leased this dogdays emporium so the good things would come to me. Two weeks before the season opened I gets a letter signed <abbr>Lieut.</abbr> Peary and one from the Duke of Marlborough, each wanting to engage board for part of the summer.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Gents,’ says he, ‘I’m glad to see you. Maybe you can help me out of a scrape. I’m getting a bit old for street work, so I leased this dogdays emporium so the good things would come to me. Two weeks before the season opened I gets a letter signed <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Lieut.</abbr> Peary and one from the Duke of Marlborough, each wanting to engage board for part of the summer.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Well, sir, you gents know what a big thing for an obscure hustlery it would be to have for guests two gentlemen whose names are famous from long association with icebergs and the Coburgs. So I prints a lot of handbills announcing that Woodchuck Inn would shelter these distinguished boarders during the summer, except in places where it leaked, and I sends ’em out to towns around as far as Knoxville and Charlotte and Fish Dam and Bowling Green.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘And now look up there on the porch, gents,’ says Smoke-’em-out, ‘at them disconsolate specimens of their fair sex waiting for the arrival of the Duke and the Lieutenant. The house is packed from rafters to cellar with hero worshippers.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘There’s four normal school teachers and two abnormal; there’s three high school graduates between 37 and 42; there’s two literary old maids and one that can write; there’s a couple of society women and a lady from Haw River. Two elocutionists are bunking in the corn crib, and I’ve put cots in the hay loft for the cook and the society editress of the Chattanooga <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Opera Glass</i>. You see how names draw, gents.’</p>
|
||||
@ -33,16 +33,16 @@
|
||||
<p>“A light breaks out on Smoke-’em-out’s face.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Can you do it, gents?’ he asks. ‘Could ye do it? Could ye play the polar man and the little duke for the nice ladies? Will ye do it?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I see that Andy is superimposed with his old hankering for the oral and polyglot system of buncoing. That man had a vocabulary of about 10,000 words and synonyms, which arrayed themselves into contraband sophistries and parables when they came out.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Listen,’ says Andy to old Smoke-’em-out. ‘Can we do it? You behold before you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Smithers, two of the finest equipped men on earth for inveigling the proletariat, whether by word of mouth, sleight-of-hand or swiftness of foot. Dukes come and go, explorers go and get lost, but me and Jeff Peters,’ says Andy, ‘go after the come-ons forever. If you say so, we’re the two illustrious guests you were expecting. And you’ll find,’ says Andy, ‘that we’ll give you the true local color of the title roles from the aurora borealis to the ducal portcullis.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Listen,’ says Andy to old Smoke-’em-out. ‘Can we do it? You behold before you, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Smithers, two of the finest equipped men on earth for inveigling the proletariat, whether by word of mouth, sleight-of-hand or swiftness of foot. Dukes come and go, explorers go and get lost, but me and Jeff Peters,’ says Andy, ‘go after the come-ons forever. If you say so, we’re the two illustrious guests you were expecting. And you’ll find,’ says Andy, ‘that we’ll give you the true local color of the title roles from the aurora borealis to the ducal portcullis.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Old Smoke-’em-out is delighted. He takes me and Andy up to the inn by an arm apiece, telling us on the way that the finest fruits of the can and luxuries of the fast freights should be ours without price as long as we would stay.</p>
|
||||
<p>“On the porch Smoke-’em-out says: ‘Ladies, I have the honor to introduce His Gracefulness the Duke of Marlborough and the famous inventor of the North Pole, <abbr>Lieut.</abbr> Peary.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“On the porch Smoke-’em-out says: ‘Ladies, I have the honor to introduce His Gracefulness the Duke of Marlborough and the famous inventor of the North Pole, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Lieut.</abbr> Peary.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The skirts all flutter and the rocking chairs squeak as me and Andy bows and then goes on in with old Smoke-’em-out to register. And then we washed up and turned our cuffs, and the landlord took us to the rooms he’d been saving for us and got out a demijohn of North Carolina real mountain dew.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I expected trouble when Andy began to drink. He has the artistic metempsychosis which is half drunk when sober and looks down on airships when stimulated.</p>
|
||||
<p>“After lingering with the demijohn me and Andy goes out on the porch, where the ladies are to begin to earn our keep. We sit in two special chairs and then the schoolma’ams and literaterrers hunched their rockers close around us.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One lady says to me: ‘How did that last venture of yours turn out, sir?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, I’d clean forgot to have an understanding with Andy which I was to be, the duke or the lieutenant. And I couldn’t tell from her question whether she was referring to Arctic or matrimonial expeditions. So I gave an answer that would cover both cases.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Well, ma’am,’ says I, ‘it was a freeze out—right smart of a freeze out, ma’am.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“And then the flood gates of Andy’s perorations was opened and I knew which one of the renowned ostensible guests I was supposed to be. I wasn’t either. Andy was both. And still furthermore it seemed that he was trying to be the mouthpiece of the whole British nobility and of Arctic exploration from Sir John Franklin down. It was the union of corn whiskey and the conscientious fictional form that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">W. D.</abbr> Howletts admires so much.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And then the flood gates of Andy’s perorations was opened and I knew which one of the renowned ostensible guests I was supposed to be. I wasn’t either. Andy was both. And still furthermore it seemed that he was trying to be the mouthpiece of the whole British nobility and of Arctic exploration from Sir John Franklin down. It was the union of corn whiskey and the conscientious fictional form that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">W. D.</abbr> Howletts admires so much.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Ladies,’ says Andy, smiling semicircularly, ‘I am truly glad to visit America. I do not consider the magna charta,’ says he, ‘or gas balloons or snowshoes in any way a detriment to the beauty and charm of your American women, skyscrapers or the architecture of your icebergs. The next time,’ says Andy, ‘that I go after the North Pole all the Vanderbilts in Greenland won’t be able to turn me out in the cold—I mean make it hot for me.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Tell us about one of your trips, Lieutenant,’ says one of the normals.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Sure,’ says Andy, getting the decision over a hiccup. ‘It was in the spring of last year that I sailed the Castle of Blenheim up to latitude 87 degrees Fahrenheit and beat the record. Ladies,’ says Andy, ‘it was a sad sight to see a Duke allied by a civil and liturgical chattel mortgage to one of your first families lost in a region of semiannual days.’ And then he goes on, ‘At four bells we sighted Westminster Abbey, but there was not a drop to eat. At noon we threw out five sandbags, and the ship rose fifteen knots higher. At midnight,’ continues Andy, ‘the restaurants closed. Sitting on a cake of ice we ate seven hot dogs. All around us was snow and ice. Six times a night the boatswain rose up and tore a leaf off the calendar, so we could keep time with the barometer. At 12,’ says Andy, with a lot of anguish on his face, ‘three huge polar bears sprang down the hatchway, into the cabin. And then—’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -116,10 +116,10 @@
|
||||
<p>“You must have a cup of tea before you go,” she said, “and a sugar cake.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She reached and shook a little iron bell. In shuffled a small Negro girl about twelve, barefoot, not very tidy, glowering at me with thumb in mouth and bulging eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>Azalea Adair opened a tiny, worn purse and drew out a dollar bill, a dollar bill with the upper right-hand corner missing, torn in two pieces, and pasted together again with a strip of blue tissue paper. It was one of the bills I had given the piratical Negro—there was no doubt about it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Go up to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Baker’s store on the corner, Impy,” she said, handing the girl the dollar bill, “and get a quarter of a pound of tea—the kind he always sends me—and ten cents worth of sugar cakes. Now, hurry. The supply of tea in the house happens to be exhausted,” she explained to me.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Go up to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Baker’s store on the corner, Impy,” she said, handing the girl the dollar bill, “and get a quarter of a pound of tea—the kind he always sends me—and ten cents worth of sugar cakes. Now, hurry. The supply of tea in the house happens to be exhausted,” she explained to me.</p>
|
||||
<p>Impy left by the back way. Before the scrape of her hard, bare feet had died away on the back porch, a wild shriek—I was sure it was hers—filled the hollow house. Then the deep, gruff tones of an angry man’s voice mingled with the girl’s further squeals and unintelligible words.</p>
|
||||
<p>Azalea Adair rose without surprise or emotion and disappeared. For two minutes I heard the hoarse rumble of the man’s voice; then something like an oath and a slight scuffle, and she returned calmly to her chair.</p>
|
||||
<p>“This is a roomy house,” she said, “and I have a tenant for part of it. I am sorry to have to rescind my invitation to tea. It was impossible to get the kind I always use at the store. Perhaps tomorrow, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Baker will be able to supply me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“This is a roomy house,” she said, “and I have a tenant for part of it. I am sorry to have to rescind my invitation to tea. It was impossible to get the kind I always use at the store. Perhaps tomorrow, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Baker will be able to supply me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I was sure that Impy had not had time to leave the house. I inquired concerning streetcar lines and took my leave. After I was well on my way I remembered that I had not learned Azalea Adair’s name. But tomorrow would do.</p>
|
||||
<p>That same day I started in on the course of iniquity that this uneventful city forced upon me. I was in the town only two days, but in that time I managed to lie shamelessly by telegraph, and to be an accomplice—after the fact, if that is the correct legal term—to a murder.</p>
|
||||
<p>As I rounded the corner nearest my hotel the Afrite coachman of the polychromatic, nonpareil coat seized me, swung open the dungeony door of his peripatetic sarcophagus, flirted his feather duster and began his ritual: “Step right in, boss. Carriage is clean—jus’ got back from a funeral. Fifty cents to any—”</p>
|
||||
@ -139,9 +139,9 @@
|
||||
<p>King Cettiwayo was at his post the next day, and rattled my bones over the stones out to 861. He was to wait and rattle me back again when I was ready.</p>
|
||||
<p>Azalea Adair looked paler and cleaner and frailer than she had looked on the day before. After she had signed the contract at eight cents per word she grew still paler and began to slip out of her chair. Without much trouble I managed to get her up on the antediluvian horsehair sofa and then I ran out to the sidewalk and yelled to the coffee-colored Pirate to bring a doctor. With a wisdom that I had not expected in him, he abandoned his team and struck off up the street afoot, realizing the value of speed. In ten minutes he returned with a grave, gray-haired and capable man of medicine. In a few words (worth much less than eight cents each) I explained to him my presence in the hollow house of mystery. He bowed with stately understanding, and turned to the old Negro.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Uncle Caesar,” he said calmly, “Run up to my house and ask Miss Lucy to give you a cream pitcher full of fresh milk and half a tumbler of port wine. And hurry back. Don’t drive—run. I want you to get back sometime this week.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It occurred to me that <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Merriman also felt a distrust as to the speeding powers of the land-pirate’s steeds. After Uncle Caesar was gone, lumberingly, but swiftly, up the street, the doctor looked me over with great politeness and as much careful calculation until he had decided that I might do.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is only a case of insufficient nutrition,” he said. “In other words, the result of poverty, pride, and starvation. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Caswell has many devoted friends who would be glad to aid her, but she will accept nothing except from that old Negro, Uncle Caesar, who was once owned by her family.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Caswell!” said I, in surprise. And then I looked at the contract and saw that she had signed it “Azalea Adair Caswell.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It occurred to me that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Merriman also felt a distrust as to the speeding powers of the land-pirate’s steeds. After Uncle Caesar was gone, lumberingly, but swiftly, up the street, the doctor looked me over with great politeness and as much careful calculation until he had decided that I might do.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is only a case of insufficient nutrition,” he said. “In other words, the result of poverty, pride, and starvation. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Caswell has many devoted friends who would be glad to aid her, but she will accept nothing except from that old Negro, Uncle Caesar, who was once owned by her family.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Caswell!” said I, in surprise. And then I looked at the contract and saw that she had signed it “Azalea Adair Caswell.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought she was Miss Adair,” I said.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Married to a drunken, worthless loafer, sir,” said the doctor. “It is said that he robs her even of the small sums that her old servant contributes toward her support.”</p>
|
||||
<p>When the milk and wine had been brought the doctor soon revived Azalea Adair. She sat up and talked of the beauty of the autumn leaves that were then in season, and their height of color. She referred lightly to her fainting seizure as the outcome of an old palpitation of the heart. Impy fanned her as she lay on the sofa. The doctor was due elsewhere, and I followed him to the door. I told him that it was within my power and intentions to make a reasonable advance of money to Azalea Adair on future contributions to the magazine, and he seemed pleased.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Thus, by the commonest artifice of the trade, having gained your interest, the action of the story will now be suspended, leaving you grumpily to consider a sort of dull biography beginning fifteen years before.</p>
|
||||
<p>When old Jacob was young Jacob he was a breaker boy in a Pennsylvania coal mine. I don’t know what a breaker boy is; but his occupation seems to be standing by a coal dump with a wan look and a dinner-pail to have his picture taken for magazine articles. Anyhow, Jacob was one. But, instead of dying of overwork at nine, and leaving his helpless parents and brothers at the mercy of the union strikers’ reserve fund, he hitched up his galluses, put a dollar or two in a side proposition now and then, and at forty-five was worth $20,000,000.</p>
|
||||
<p>There now! it’s over. Hardly had time to yawn, did you? I’ve seen biographies that—but let us dissemble.</p>
|
||||
<p>I want you to consider Jacob Spraggins, <abbr>Esq.</abbr>, after he had arrived at the seventh stage of his career. The stages meant are, first, humble origin; second, deserved promotion; third, stockholder; fourth, capitalist; fifth, trust magnate; sixth, rich malefactor; seventh, caliph; eighth, <i epub:type="z3998:grapheme">x</i>. The eighth stage shall be left to the higher mathematics.</p>
|
||||
<p>I want you to consider Jacob Spraggins, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Esq.</abbr>, after he had arrived at the seventh stage of his career. The stages meant are, first, humble origin; second, deserved promotion; third, stockholder; fourth, capitalist; fifth, trust magnate; sixth, rich malefactor; seventh, caliph; eighth, <i epub:type="z3998:grapheme">x</i>. The eighth stage shall be left to the higher mathematics.</p>
|
||||
<p>At fifty-five Jacob retired from active business. The income of a czar was still rolling in on him from coal, iron, real estate, oil, railroads, manufactories, and corporations, but none of it touched Jacob’s hands in a raw state. It was a sterilized increment, carefully cleaned and dusted and fumigated until it arrived at its ultimate stage of untainted, spotless checks in the white fingers of his private secretary. Jacob built a three-million-dollar palace on a corner lot fronting on Nabob Avenue, city of New Bagdad, and began to feel the mantle of the late <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">H. A.</abbr> Rashid descending upon him. Eventually Jacob slipped the mantle under his collar, tied it in a neat four-in-hand, and became a licensed harrier of our Mesopotamian proletariat.</p>
|
||||
<p>When a man’s income becomes so large that the butcher actually sends him the kind of steak he orders, he begins to think about his soul’s salvation. Now, the various stages or classes of rich men must not be forgotten. The capitalist can tell you to a dollar the amount of his wealth. The trust magnate “estimates” it. The rich malefactor hands you a cigar and denies that he has bought the <abbr>P. D. & Q.</abbr> The caliph merely smiles and talks about Hammerstein and the musical lasses. There is a record of tremendous altercation at breakfast in a “Where-to-Dine-Well” tavern between a magnate and his wife, the rift within the loot being that the wife calculated their fortune at a figure $3,000,000 higher than did her future divorcé. Oh, well, I, myself, heard a similar quarrel between a man and his wife because he found fifty cents less in his pockets than he thought he had. After all, we are all human—Count Tolstoy, <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">R.</abbr> Fitzsimmons, Peter Pan, and the rest of us.</p>
|
||||
<p>Don’t lose heart because the story seems to be degenerating into a sort of moral essay for intellectual readers.</p>
|
||||
@ -45,7 +45,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Celia is the heroine. Lest the artist’s delineation of her charms on this very page humbug your fancy, take from me her authorized description. She was a nice-looking, awkward, loud, rather bashful, brown-haired girl, with a sallow complexion, bright eyes, and a perpetual smile. She had a wholesome, Spraggins-inherited love for plain food, loose clothing, and the society of the lower classes. She had too much health and youth to feel the burden of wealth. She had a wide mouth that kept the peppermint-pepsin tablets rattling like hail from the slot-machine wherever she went, and she could whistle hornpipes. Keep this picture in mind; and let the artist do his worst.</p>
|
||||
<p>Celia looked out of her window one day and gave her heart to the grocer’s young man. The receiver thereof was at that moment engaged in conceding immortality to his horse and calling down upon him the ultimate fate of the wicked; so he did not notice the transfer. A horse should stand still when you are lifting a crate of strictly new-laid eggs out of the wagon.</p>
|
||||
<p>Young lady reader, you would have liked that grocer’s young man yourself. But you wouldn’t have given him your heart, because you are saving it for a riding-master, or a shoe-manufacturer with a torpid liver, or something quiet but rich in gray tweeds at Palm Beach. Oh, I know about it. So I am glad the grocer’s young man was for Celia, and not for you.</p>
|
||||
<p>The grocer’s young man was slim and straight and as confident and easy in his movements as the man in the back of the magazines who wears the new frictionless roller suspenders. He wore a gray bicycle cap on the back of his head, and his hair was straw-colored and curly, and his sunburned face looked like one that smiled a good deal when he was not preaching the doctrine of everlasting punishment to delivery-wagon horses. He slung imported A1 fancy groceries about as though they were only the stuff he delivered at boardinghouses; and when he picked up his whip, your mind instantly recalled <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tackett and his air with the buttonless foils.</p>
|
||||
<p>The grocer’s young man was slim and straight and as confident and easy in his movements as the man in the back of the magazines who wears the new frictionless roller suspenders. He wore a gray bicycle cap on the back of his head, and his hair was straw-colored and curly, and his sunburned face looked like one that smiled a good deal when he was not preaching the doctrine of everlasting punishment to delivery-wagon horses. He slung imported A1 fancy groceries about as though they were only the stuff he delivered at boardinghouses; and when he picked up his whip, your mind instantly recalled <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Tackett and his air with the buttonless foils.</p>
|
||||
<p>Tradesmen delivered their goods at a side gate at the rear of the house. The grocer’s wagon came about ten in the morning. For three days Celia watched the driver when he came, finding something new each time to admire in the lofty and almost contemptuous way he had of tossing around the choicest gifts of Pomona, Ceres, and the canning factories. Then she consulted Annette.</p>
|
||||
<p>To be explicit, Annette McCorkle, the second housemaid who deserves a paragraph herself. Annette Fletcherized large numbers of romantic novels which she obtained at a free public library branch (donated by one of the biggest caliphs in the business). She was Celia’s side-kicker and chum, though Aunt Henrietta didn’t know it, you may hazard a bean or two.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, canary-bird seed!” exclaimed Annette. “Ain’t it a corkin’ situation? You a heiress, and fallin’ in love with him on sight! He’s a sweet boy, too, and above his business. But he ain’t susceptible like the common run of grocer’s assistants. He never pays no attention to me.”</p>
|
||||
@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“That’s all right. I’m Thomas McLeod. What part of the house do you work in?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m the—the second parlor maid.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you know the ‘Falling Waters’?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No,” said Celia, “we don’t know anybody. We got rich too quick—that is, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Spraggins did.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No,” said Celia, “we don’t know anybody. We got rich too quick—that is, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Spraggins did.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll make you acquainted,” said Thomas McLeod. “It’s a strathspey—the first cousin to a hornpipe.”</p>
|
||||
<p>If Celia’s whistling put the piccolos out of commission, Thomas McLeod’s surely made the biggest flutes hunt their holes. He could actually whistle <em>bass</em>.</p>
|
||||
<p>When he stopped Celia was ready to jump into his delivery wagon and ride with him clear to the end of the pier and on to the ferryboat of the Charon line.</p>
|
||||
@ -86,7 +86,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“And, oh, Tommy, I forgot,” she called, softly. “I believe I could make your neckties.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Forget it,” said Thomas decisively.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And another thing,” she continued. “Sliced cucumbers at night will drive away cockroaches.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“And sleep, too, you bet,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McLeod. “Yes, I believe if I have a delivery to make on the West Side this afternoon I’ll look in at a furniture store I know over there.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“And sleep, too, you bet,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McLeod. “Yes, I believe if I have a delivery to make on the West Side this afternoon I’ll look in at a furniture store I know over there.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It was just as the wagon dashed away that old Jacob Spraggins struck the sideboard with his fist and made the mysterious remark about ten thousand dollars that you perhaps remember. Which justifies the reflection that some stories, as well as life, and puppies thrown into wells, move around in circles. Painfully but briefly we must shed light on Jacob’s words.</p>
|
||||
<p>The foundation of his fortune was made when he was twenty. A poor coal-digger (ever hear of a rich one?) had saved a dollar or two and bought a small tract of land on a hillside on which he tried to raise corn. Not a nubbin. Jacob, whose nose was a divining-rod, told him there was a vein of coal beneath. He bought the land from the miner for $125 and sold it a month afterward for $10,000. Luckily the miner had enough left of his sale money to drink himself into a black coat opening in the back, as soon as he heard the news.</p>
|
||||
<p>And so, for forty years afterward, we find Jacob illuminated with the sudden thought that if he could make restitution of this sum of money to the heirs or assigns of the unlucky miner, respite and Nepenthe might be his.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -14,15 +14,15 @@
|
||||
<p>These assertions are deemed fitting as an introduction to the tale, which is of plebeians and contains no one with even the ghost of a title.</p>
|
||||
<p>Katy Dempsey’s mother kept a furnished-room house in this oasis of the aliens. The business was not profitable. If the two scraped together enough to meet the landlord’s agent on rent day and negotiate for the ingredients of a daily Irish stew they called it success. Often the stew lacked both meat and potatoes. Sometimes it became as bad as consommé with music.</p>
|
||||
<p>In this mouldy old house Katy waxed plump and pert and wholesome and as beautiful and freckled as a tiger lily. She was the good fairy who was guilty of placing the damp clean towels and cracked pitchers of freshly laundered Croton in the lodgers’ rooms.</p>
|
||||
<p>You are informed (by virtue of the privileges of astronomical discovery) that the star lodger’s name was <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli. His wearing a yellow tie and paying his rent promptly distinguished him from the other lodgers. His raiment was splendid, his complexion olive, his mustache fierce, his manners a prince’s, his rings and pins as magnificent as those of a traveling dentist.</p>
|
||||
<p>He had breakfast served in his room, and he ate it in a red dressing gown with green tassels. He left the house at noon and returned at midnight. Those were mysterious hours, but there was nothing mysterious about <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Dempsey’s lodgers except the things that were not mysterious. One of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kipling’s poems is addressed to “Ye who hold the unwritten clue to all save all unwritten things.” The same “readers” are invited to tackle the foregoing assertion.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli, being impressionable and a Latin, fell to conjugating the verb “<i xml:lang="la">amare</i>,” with Katy in the objective case, though not because of antipathy. She talked it over with her mother.</p>
|
||||
<p>You are informed (by virtue of the privileges of astronomical discovery) that the star lodger’s name was <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Brunelli. His wearing a yellow tie and paying his rent promptly distinguished him from the other lodgers. His raiment was splendid, his complexion olive, his mustache fierce, his manners a prince’s, his rings and pins as magnificent as those of a traveling dentist.</p>
|
||||
<p>He had breakfast served in his room, and he ate it in a red dressing gown with green tassels. He left the house at noon and returned at midnight. Those were mysterious hours, but there was nothing mysterious about <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Dempsey’s lodgers except the things that were not mysterious. One of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Kipling’s poems is addressed to “Ye who hold the unwritten clue to all save all unwritten things.” The same “readers” are invited to tackle the foregoing assertion.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Brunelli, being impressionable and a Latin, fell to conjugating the verb “<i xml:lang="la">amare</i>,” with Katy in the objective case, though not because of antipathy. She talked it over with her mother.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sure, I like him,” said Katy. “He’s more politeness than twinty candidates for Alderman, and he makes me feel like a queen whin he walks at me side. But what is he, I dinno? I’ve me suspicions. The marnin’ll coom whin he’ll throt out the picture av his baronial halls and ax to have the week’s rint hung up in the ice chist along wid all the rist of ’em.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Tis thrue,” admitted <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Dempsey, “that he seems to be a sort <span epub:type="z3998:roman">iv</span> a Dago, and too coolchured in his spache for a rale gentleman. But ye may be misjudgin’ him. Ye should niver suspect any wan of bein’ of noble descint that pays cash and pathronizes the laundry rig’lar.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s the same thricks of spakin’ and blarneyin’ wid his hands,” sighed Katy, “as the Frinch nobleman at <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Toole’s that ran away wid <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Toole’s Sunday pants and left the photograph of the Bastile, his grandfather’s chat-taw, as security for tin weeks’ rint.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli continued his calorific wooing. Katy continued to hesitate. One day he asked her out to dine and she felt that a dénouement was in the air. While they are on their way, with Katy in her best muslin, you must take as an entr’acte a brief peep at New York’s Bohemia.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Tis thrue,” admitted <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Dempsey, “that he seems to be a sort <span epub:type="z3998:roman">iv</span> a Dago, and too coolchured in his spache for a rale gentleman. But ye may be misjudgin’ him. Ye should niver suspect any wan of bein’ of noble descint that pays cash and pathronizes the laundry rig’lar.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s the same thricks of spakin’ and blarneyin’ wid his hands,” sighed Katy, “as the Frinch nobleman at <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Toole’s that ran away wid <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Toole’s Sunday pants and left the photograph of the Bastile, his grandfather’s chat-taw, as security for tin weeks’ rint.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Brunelli continued his calorific wooing. Katy continued to hesitate. One day he asked her out to dine and she felt that a dénouement was in the air. While they are on their way, with Katy in her best muslin, you must take as an entr’acte a brief peep at New York’s Bohemia.</p>
|
||||
<p>’Tonio’s restaurant is in Bohemia. The very location of it is secret. If you wish to know where it is ask the first person you meet. He will tell you in a whisper. ’Tonio discountenances custom; he keeps his house-front black and forbidding; he gives you a pretty bad dinner; he locks his door at the dining hour; but he knows spaghetti as the boardinghouse knows cold veal; and—he has deposited many dollars in a certain Banco di ⸻ something with many gold vowels in the name on its windows.</p>
|
||||
<p>To this restaurant <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli conducted Katy. The house was dark and the shades were lowered; but <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli touched an electric button by the basement door, and they were admitted.</p>
|
||||
<p>To this restaurant <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Brunelli conducted Katy. The house was dark and the shades were lowered; but <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Brunelli touched an electric button by the basement door, and they were admitted.</p>
|
||||
<p>Along a long, dark, narrow hallway they went and then through a shining and spotless kitchen that opened directly upon a back yard.</p>
|
||||
<p>The walls of houses hemmed three sides of the yard; a high, board fence, surrounded by cats, the other. A wash of clothes was suspended high upon a line stretched from diagonal corners. Those were property clothes, and were never taken in by ’Tonio. They were there that wits with defective pronunciation might make puns in connection with the ragout.</p>
|
||||
<p>A dozen and a half little tables set upon the bare ground were crowded with Bohemia-hunters, who flocked there because ’Tonio pretended not to want them and pretended to give them a good dinner. There was a sprinkling of real Bohemians present who came for a change because they were tired of the real Bohemia, and a smart shower of the men who originate the bright sayings of Congressmen and the little nephew of the well-known general passenger agent of the Evansville and Terre Haute Railroad Company.</p>
|
||||
@ -32,20 +32,20 @@
|
||||
<p>“How so?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The dinner costs you 40 cents; you give 10 cents to the waiter, and it makes you feel like 30 cents.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Most of the diners were confirmed <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôters</span>—gastronomic adventurers, forever seeking the El Dorado of a good claret, and consistently coming to grief in California.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli escorted Katy to a little table embowered with shrubbery in tubs, and asked her to excuse him for a while.</p>
|
||||
<p>Katy sat, enchanted by a scene so brilliant to her. The grand ladies, in splendid dresses and plumes and sparkling rings; the fine gentlemen who laughed so loudly, the cries of “Garsong!” and “We, monseer,” and “Hello, Mame!” that distinguish Bohemia; the lively chatter, the cigarette smoke, the interchange of bright smiles and eye-glances—all this display and magnificence overpowered the daughter of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Dempsey and held her motionless.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli stepped into the yard and seemed to spread his smile and bow over the entire company. And everywhere there was a great clapping of hands and a few cries of “Bravo!” and “ ’Tonio! ’Tonio!” whatever those words might mean. Ladies waved their napkins at him, gentlemen almost twisted their necks off, trying to catch his nod.</p>
|
||||
<p>When the ovation was concluded <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli, with a final bow, stepped nimbly into the kitchen and flung off his coat and waistcoat.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Brunelli escorted Katy to a little table embowered with shrubbery in tubs, and asked her to excuse him for a while.</p>
|
||||
<p>Katy sat, enchanted by a scene so brilliant to her. The grand ladies, in splendid dresses and plumes and sparkling rings; the fine gentlemen who laughed so loudly, the cries of “Garsong!” and “We, monseer,” and “Hello, Mame!” that distinguish Bohemia; the lively chatter, the cigarette smoke, the interchange of bright smiles and eye-glances—all this display and magnificence overpowered the daughter of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Dempsey and held her motionless.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Brunelli stepped into the yard and seemed to spread his smile and bow over the entire company. And everywhere there was a great clapping of hands and a few cries of “Bravo!” and “ ’Tonio! ’Tonio!” whatever those words might mean. Ladies waved their napkins at him, gentlemen almost twisted their necks off, trying to catch his nod.</p>
|
||||
<p>When the ovation was concluded <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Brunelli, with a final bow, stepped nimbly into the kitchen and flung off his coat and waistcoat.</p>
|
||||
<p>Flaherty, the nimblest “garsong” among the waiters, had been assigned to the special service of Katy. She was a little faint from hunger, for the Irish stew on the Dempsey table had been particularly weak that day. Delicious odors from unknown dishes tantalized her. And Flaherty began to bring to her table course after course of ambrosial food that the gods might have pronounced excellent.</p>
|
||||
<p>But even in the midst of her Lucullian repast Katy laid down her knife and fork. Her heart sank as lead, and a tear fell upon her filet mignon. Her haunting suspicions of the star lodger arose again, fourfold. Thus courted and admired and smiled upon by that fashionable and gracious assembly, what else could <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli be but one of those dazzling titled patricians, glorious of name but shy of rent money, concerning whom experience had made her wise? With a sense of his ineligibility growing within her there was mingled a torturing conviction that his personality was becoming more pleasing to her day by day. And why had he left her to dine alone?</p>
|
||||
<p>But even in the midst of her Lucullian repast Katy laid down her knife and fork. Her heart sank as lead, and a tear fell upon her filet mignon. Her haunting suspicions of the star lodger arose again, fourfold. Thus courted and admired and smiled upon by that fashionable and gracious assembly, what else could <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Brunelli be but one of those dazzling titled patricians, glorious of name but shy of rent money, concerning whom experience had made her wise? With a sense of his ineligibility growing within her there was mingled a torturing conviction that his personality was becoming more pleasing to her day by day. And why had he left her to dine alone?</p>
|
||||
<p>But here he was coming again, now coatless, his snowy shirtsleeves rolled high above his Jeffriesonian elbows, a white yachting cap perched upon his jetty curls.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Tonio! ’Tonio!” shouted many, and “The spaghetti! The spaghetti!” shouted the rest.</p>
|
||||
<p>Never at ’Tonio’s did a waiter dare to serve a dish of spaghetti until ’Tonio came to test it, to prove the sauce and add the needful dash of seasoning that gave it perfection.</p>
|
||||
<p>From table to table moved ’Tonio, like a prince in his palace, greeting his guests. White, jewelled hands signalled him from every side.</p>
|
||||
<p>A glass of wine with this one and that, smiles for all, a jest and repartee for any that might challenge—truly few princes could be so agreeable a host! And what artist could ask for further appreciation of his handiwork? Katy did not know that the proudest consummation of a New Yorker’s ambition is to shake hands with a spaghetti chef or to receive a nod from a Broadway headwaiter.</p>
|
||||
<p>At last the company thinned, leaving but a few couples and quartettes lingering over new wine and old stories. And then came <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli to Katy’s secluded table, and drew a chair close to hers.</p>
|
||||
<p>At last the company thinned, leaving but a few couples and quartettes lingering over new wine and old stories. And then came <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Brunelli to Katy’s secluded table, and drew a chair close to hers.</p>
|
||||
<p>Katy smiled at him dreamily. She was eating the last spoonful of a raspberry roll with Burgundy sauce.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You have seen!” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli, laying one hand upon his collar bone. “I am Antonio Brunelli! Yes; I am the great ’Tonio! You have not suspect that! I loave you, Katy, and you shall marry with me. Is it not so? Call me ‘Antonio,’ and say that you will be mine.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You have seen!” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Brunelli, laying one hand upon his collar bone. “I am Antonio Brunelli! Yes; I am the great ’Tonio! You have not suspect that! I loave you, Katy, and you shall marry with me. Is it not so? Call me ‘Antonio,’ and say that you will be mine.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Katy’s head drooped to the shoulder that was now freed from all suspicion of having received the knightly accolade.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, Andy,” she sighed, “this is great! Sure, I’ll marry wid ye. But why didn’t ye tell me ye was the cook? I was near turnin’ ye down for bein’ one of thim foreign counts!”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,8 +8,8 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="a-poor-rule" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Poor Rule</h2>
|
||||
<p>I have always maintained, and asserted time to time, that woman is no mystery; that man can foretell, construe, subdue, comprehend, and interpret her. That she is a mystery has been foisted by herself upon credulous mankind. Whether I am right or wrong we shall see. As “Harper’s Drawer” used to say in bygone years: “The following good story is told of Miss ⸻, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> ⸻, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> ⸻, and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> ⸻.”</p>
|
||||
<p>We shall have to omit “Bishop X” and “the <abbr>Rev.</abbr> ⸻,” for they do not belong.</p>
|
||||
<p>I have always maintained, and asserted time to time, that woman is no mystery; that man can foretell, construe, subdue, comprehend, and interpret her. That she is a mystery has been foisted by herself upon credulous mankind. Whether I am right or wrong we shall see. As “Harper’s Drawer” used to say in bygone years: “The following good story is told of Miss ⸻, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> ⸻, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> ⸻, and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> ⸻.”</p>
|
||||
<p>We shall have to omit “Bishop X” and “the <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Rev.</abbr> ⸻,” for they do not belong.</p>
|
||||
<p>In those days Paloma was a new town on the line of the Southern Pacific. A reporter would have called it a “mushroom” town; but it was not. Paloma was, first and last, of the toadstool variety.</p>
|
||||
<p>The train stopped there at noon for the engine to drink and for the passengers both to drink and to dine. There was a new yellow-pine hotel, also a wool warehouse, and perhaps three dozen box residences. The rest was composed of tents, cow ponies, “black-waxy” mud, and mesquite-trees, all bound round by a horizon. Paloma was an about-to-be city. The houses represented faith; the tents hope; the twice-a-day train, by which you might leave, creditably sustained the role of charity.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Parisian Restaurant occupied the muddiest spot in the town while it rained, and the warmest when it shone. It was operated, owned, and perpetrated by a citizen known as Old Man Hinkle, who had come out of Indiana to make his fortune in this land of condensed milk and sorghum.</p>
|
||||
@ -42,11 +42,11 @@
|
||||
<p>(Old Man Hinkle was shipping a thousand silver dollars a month, clear profit, to a bank in San Antonio.)</p>
|
||||
<p>Bud twisted around in his chair and bent the rim of his hat, from which he could never be persuaded to separate. He did not know whether she wanted what she said she wanted or what she knew she deserved. Many a wiser man has hesitated at deciding. Bud decided.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why—ah, Miss Ileen, beauty, as you might say, ain’t everything. Not sayin’ that you haven’t your share of good looks, I always admired more than anything else about you the nice, kind way you treat your ma and pa. Anyone what’s good to their parents and is a kind of homebody don’t specially need to be too pretty.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ileen gave him one of her sweetest smiles. “Thank you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cunningham,” she said. “I consider that one of the finest compliments I’ve had in a long time. I’d so much rather hear you say that than to hear you talk about my eyes and hair. I’m glad you believe me when I say I don’t like flattery.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ileen gave him one of her sweetest smiles. “Thank you, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cunningham,” she said. “I consider that one of the finest compliments I’ve had in a long time. I’d so much rather hear you say that than to hear you talk about my eyes and hair. I’m glad you believe me when I say I don’t like flattery.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Our cue was there for us. Bud had made a good guess. You couldn’t lose Jacks. He chimed in next.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sure thing, Miss Ileen,” he said; “the good-lookers don’t always win out. Now, you ain’t bad looking, of course—but that’s nix-cum-rous. I knew a girl once in Dubuque with a face like a coconut, who could skin the cat twice on a horizontal bar without changing hands. Now, a girl might have the California peach crop mashed to a marmalade and not be able to do that. I’ve seen—er—worse lookers than <em>you</em>, Miss Ileen; but what I like about you is the business way you’ve got of doing things. Cool and wise—that’s the winning way for a girl. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hinkle told me the other day you’d never taken in a lead silver dollar or a plugged one since you’ve been on the job. Now, that’s the stuff for a girl—that’s what catches me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sure thing, Miss Ileen,” he said; “the good-lookers don’t always win out. Now, you ain’t bad looking, of course—but that’s nix-cum-rous. I knew a girl once in Dubuque with a face like a coconut, who could skin the cat twice on a horizontal bar without changing hands. Now, a girl might have the California peach crop mashed to a marmalade and not be able to do that. I’ve seen—er—worse lookers than <em>you</em>, Miss Ileen; but what I like about you is the business way you’ve got of doing things. Cool and wise—that’s the winning way for a girl. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Hinkle told me the other day you’d never taken in a lead silver dollar or a plugged one since you’ve been on the job. Now, that’s the stuff for a girl—that’s what catches me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Jacks got his smile, too.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thank you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jacks,” said Ileen. “If you only knew how I appreciate anyone’s being candid and not a flatterer! I get so tired of people telling me I’m pretty. I think it is the loveliest thing to have friends who tell you the truth.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thank you, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Jacks,” said Ileen. “If you only knew how I appreciate anyone’s being candid and not a flatterer! I get so tired of people telling me I’m pretty. I think it is the loveliest thing to have friends who tell you the truth.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Then I thought I saw an expectant look on Ileen’s face as she glanced toward me. I had a wild, sudden impulse to dare fate, and tell her of all the beautiful handiwork of the Great Artificer she was the most exquisite—that she was a flawless pearl gleaming pure and serene in a setting of black mud and emerald prairies—that she was—a—a corker; and as for mine, I cared not if she were as cruel as a serpent’s tooth to her fond parents, or if she couldn’t tell a plugged dollar from a bridle buckle, if I might sing, chant, praise, glorify, and worship her peerless and wonderful beauty.</p>
|
||||
<p>But I refrained. I feared the fate of a flatterer. I had witnessed her delight at the crafty and discreet words of Bud and Jacks. No! Miss Hinkle was not one to be beguiled by the plated-silver tongue of a flatterer. So I joined the ranks of the candid and honest. At once I became mendacious and didactic.</p>
|
||||
<p>“In all ages, Miss Hinkle,” said I, “in spite of the poetry and romance of each, intellect in woman has been admired more than beauty. Even in Cleopatra, herself, men found more charm in her queenly mind than in her looks.”</p>
|
||||
@ -66,25 +66,25 @@
|
||||
<p>But a day came that gave us courage.</p>
|
||||
<p>About dusk one evening I was sitting on the little gallery in front of the Hinkle parlor, waiting for Ileen to come, when I heard voices inside. She had come into the room with her father, and Old Man Hinkle began to talk to her. I had observed before that he was a shrewd man, and not unphilosophic.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ily,” said he, “I notice there’s three or four young fellers that have been callin’ to see you regular for quite a while. Is there any one of ’em you like better than another?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, pa,” she answered, “I like all of ’em very well. I think <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cunningham and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jacks and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Harris are very nice young men. They are so frank and honest in everything they say to me. I haven’t known <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Vesey very long, but I think he’s a very nice young man, he’s so frank and honest in everything he says to me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, pa,” she answered, “I like all of ’em very well. I think <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cunningham and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Jacks and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Harris are very nice young men. They are so frank and honest in everything they say to me. I haven’t known <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Vesey very long, but I think he’s a very nice young man, he’s so frank and honest in everything he says to me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, that’s what I’m gittin’ at,” says old Hinkle. “You’ve always been sayin’ you like people what tell the truth and don’t go humbuggin’ you with compliments and bogus talk. Now, suppose you make a test of these fellers, and see which one of ’em will talk the straightest to you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But how’ll I do it, pa?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll tell you how. You know you sing a little bit, Ily; you took music-lessons nearly two years in Logansport. It wasn’t long, but it was all we could afford then. And your teacher said you didn’t have any voice, and it was a waste of money to keep on. Now, suppose you ask the fellers what they think of your singin’, and see what each one of ’em tells you. The man that’ll tell you the truth about it’ll have a mighty lot of nerve, and’ll do to tie to. What do you think of the plan?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right, pa,” said Ileen. “I think it’s a good idea. I’ll try it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ileen and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hinkle went out of the room through the inside doors. Unobserved, I hurried down to the station. Jacks was at his telegraph table waiting for eight o’clock to come. It was Bud’s night in town, and when he rode in I repeated the conversation to them both. I was loyal to my rivals, as all true admirers of all Ileens should be.</p>
|
||||
<p>Ileen and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Hinkle went out of the room through the inside doors. Unobserved, I hurried down to the station. Jacks was at his telegraph table waiting for eight o’clock to come. It was Bud’s night in town, and when he rode in I repeated the conversation to them both. I was loyal to my rivals, as all true admirers of all Ileens should be.</p>
|
||||
<p>Simultaneously the three of us were smitten by an uplifting thought. Surely this test would eliminate Vesey from the contest. He, with his unctuous flattery, would be driven from the lists. Well we remembered Ileen’s love of frankness and honesty—how she treasured truth and candor above vain compliment and blandishment.</p>
|
||||
<p>Linking arms, we did a grotesque dance of joy up and down the platform, singing “Muldoon Was a Solid Man” at the top of our voices.</p>
|
||||
<p>That evening four of the willow rocking-chairs were filled besides the lucky one that sustained the trim figure of Miss Hinkle. Three of us awaited with suppressed excitement the application of the test. It was tried on Bud first.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cunningham,” said Ileen, with her dazzling smile, after she had sung “When the Leaves Begin to Turn,” “what do you really think of my voice? Frankly and honestly, now, as you know I want you to always be toward me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cunningham,” said Ileen, with her dazzling smile, after she had sung “When the Leaves Begin to Turn,” “what do you really think of my voice? Frankly and honestly, now, as you know I want you to always be toward me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Bud squirmed in his chair at his chance to show the sincerity that he knew was required of him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Tell you the truth, Miss Ileen,” he said, earnestly, “you ain’t got much more voice than a weasel—just a little squeak, you know. Of course, we all like to hear you sing, for it’s kind of sweet and soothin’ after all, and you look most as mighty well sittin’ on the piano-stool as you do faced around. But as for real singin’—I reckon you couldn’t call it that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I looked closely at Ileen to see if Bud had overdone his frankness, but her pleased smile and sweetly spoken thanks assured me that we were on the right track.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And what do you think, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jacks?” she asked next.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And what do you think, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Jacks?” she asked next.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Take it from me,” said Jacks, “you ain’t in the prima donna class. I’ve heard ’em warble in every city in the United States; and I tell you your vocal output don’t go. Otherwise, you’ve got the grand opera bunch sent to the soap factory—in looks, I mean; for the high screechers generally look like Mary Ann on her Thursday out. But nix for the gargle work. Your epiglottis ain’t a real side-stepper—its footwork ain’t good.”</p>
|
||||
<p>With a merry laugh at Jacks’ criticism, Ileen looked inquiringly at me.</p>
|
||||
<p>I admit that I faltered a little. Was there not such a thing as being too frank? Perhaps I even hedged a little in my verdict; but I stayed with the critics.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am not skilled in scientific music, Miss Ileen,” I said, “but, frankly, I cannot praise very highly the singing-voice that Nature has given you. It has long been a favorite comparison that a great singer sings like a bird. Well, there are birds and birds. I would say that your voice reminds me of the thrush’s—throaty and not strong, nor of much compass or variety—but still—er—sweet—in—er—its—way, and—er—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thank you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Harris,” interrupted Miss Hinkle. “I knew I could depend upon your frankness and honesty.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thank you, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Harris,” interrupted Miss Hinkle. “I knew I could depend upon your frankness and honesty.”</p>
|
||||
<p>And then <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">C.</abbr> Vincent Vesey drew back one sleeve from his snowy cuff, and the water came down at Lodore.</p>
|
||||
<p>My memory cannot do justice to his masterly tribute to that priceless, God-given treasure—Miss Hinkle’s voice. He raved over it in terms that, if they had been addressed to the morning stars when they sang together, would have made that stellar choir explode in a meteoric shower of flaming self-satisfaction.</p>
|
||||
<p>He marshalled on his white fingertips the grand opera stars of all the continents, from Jenny Lind to Emma Abbott, only to depreciate their endowments. He spoke of larynxes, of chest notes, of phrasing, arpeggios, and other strange paraphernalia of the throaty art. He admitted, as though driven to a corner, that Jenny Lind had a note or two in the high register that Miss Hinkle had not yet acquired—but—“!!!”—that was a mere matter of practice and training.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,20 +11,20 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Professional Secret</h2>
|
||||
<p epub:type="subtitle">The Story of a Maid Made Over</p>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Dr.</abbr> Satterfield Prince, physician to the leisure class, looked at his watch. It indicated five minutes to twelve. At the stroke of the hour would expire the morning term set apart for the reception of his patients in his handsome office apartments. And then the young woman attendant ushered in from the waiting-room the last unit of the wealthy and fashionable gathering that had come to patronize his skill.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Dr.</abbr> Prince turned, his watch still in hand, his manner courteous, but seeming to invite promptness and brevity in the interview. The last patient was a middle-aged lady, richly dressed, with an amiable and placid face. When she spoke her voice revealed the drawling, musical slur and intonation of the South. She had come, she leisurely explained, to bespeak the services of <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Prince in the case of her daughter, who was possessed of a most mysterious affliction. And then, femininely, she proceeded to exhaustively diagnose the affliction, informing the physician with a calm certitude of its origin and nature.</p>
|
||||
<p>The diagnosis advanced by the lady—<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Galloway Rankin—was one so marvelously strange and singular in its conception that <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Prince, accustomed as he was to the conceits and vagaries of wealthy malingerers, was actually dumbfounded. The following is the matter of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Rankin’s statement, briefly reported:</p>
|
||||
<p>She—<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Rankin—was of an old Kentucky family, the Bealls. Between the Bealls and another historic house—the Rankins—had been waged for nearly a century one of the fiercest and most sanguinary feuds within the history of the State. Each generation had kept alive both the hate and the warfare, until at length it was said that Nature began to take cognizance of the sentiment and Bealls and Rankins were born upon earth as antagonistic toward each other as cats and dogs. So, for four generations the war had waged, and the mountains were dotted with tombstones of both families. At last, for lack of fuel to feed upon, the feud expired with only one direct descendant of the Bealls and one of the Rankins remaining—Evalina Beall, aged nineteen, and Galloway Rankin, aged twenty-five. The last mortal shot in the feud was fired by Cupid. The two survivors met, became immediately and mutually enamoured, and a miracle transpired on Kentucky soil—a Rankin wedded a Beall.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Satterfield Prince, physician to the leisure class, looked at his watch. It indicated five minutes to twelve. At the stroke of the hour would expire the morning term set apart for the reception of his patients in his handsome office apartments. And then the young woman attendant ushered in from the waiting-room the last unit of the wealthy and fashionable gathering that had come to patronize his skill.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Prince turned, his watch still in hand, his manner courteous, but seeming to invite promptness and brevity in the interview. The last patient was a middle-aged lady, richly dressed, with an amiable and placid face. When she spoke her voice revealed the drawling, musical slur and intonation of the South. She had come, she leisurely explained, to bespeak the services of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Prince in the case of her daughter, who was possessed of a most mysterious affliction. And then, femininely, she proceeded to exhaustively diagnose the affliction, informing the physician with a calm certitude of its origin and nature.</p>
|
||||
<p>The diagnosis advanced by the lady—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Galloway Rankin—was one so marvelously strange and singular in its conception that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Prince, accustomed as he was to the conceits and vagaries of wealthy malingerers, was actually dumbfounded. The following is the matter of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Rankin’s statement, briefly reported:</p>
|
||||
<p>She—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Rankin—was of an old Kentucky family, the Bealls. Between the Bealls and another historic house—the Rankins—had been waged for nearly a century one of the fiercest and most sanguinary feuds within the history of the State. Each generation had kept alive both the hate and the warfare, until at length it was said that Nature began to take cognizance of the sentiment and Bealls and Rankins were born upon earth as antagonistic toward each other as cats and dogs. So, for four generations the war had waged, and the mountains were dotted with tombstones of both families. At last, for lack of fuel to feed upon, the feud expired with only one direct descendant of the Bealls and one of the Rankins remaining—Evalina Beall, aged nineteen, and Galloway Rankin, aged twenty-five. The last mortal shot in the feud was fired by Cupid. The two survivors met, became immediately and mutually enamoured, and a miracle transpired on Kentucky soil—a Rankin wedded a Beall.</p>
|
||||
<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 <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Prince was petitioned.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then followed, in <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Rankin’s statement, a description of the mysterious, though by her readily accounted for, affliction.</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—<abbr>Dr.</abbr> Prince, said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Rankin, would understand and admit the nonexistence 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 <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> 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, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> 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>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 <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Prince was petitioned.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then followed, in <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Rankin’s statement, a description of the mysterious, though by her readily accounted for, affliction.</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—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Prince, said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Rankin, would understand and admit the nonexistence 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 <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> 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, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> 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><abbr>Dr.</abbr> 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 <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> 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 <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Grumbleton Myers, the great specialist in locomotor ataxia and nerve ailments. 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><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> 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 <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> 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 <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Grumbleton Myers, the great specialist in locomotor ataxia and nerve ailments. 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. 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>
|
||||
@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Doctor Prince burned midnight oil—or its equivalent, a patent, electric, soft-shaded, midnight incandescent, over his case. With such little success did his light shine that he was forced to make a little speech to the Rankins full of scientific terms—a thing he conscientiously avoided with his patients—which shows that he was driven to expedient. At last he was reduced to suggest treatment by hypnotism.</p>
|
||||
<p>Being crowded further, he advised it, and appeared another day with Professor Adami, the most reputable and non-advertising one he could find among that school of practitioners.</p>
|
||||
<p>Miss Annabel, gentle and melancholy, fell an easy victim—or, I should say, subject—to the professor’s influence. Previously instructed by Doctor Prince in the nature of the malady he was about to combat, the dealer in mental drugs proceeded to offer “suggestion” (in the language of his school) to the afflicted and unconscious young lady, impressing her mind with the conviction that her affliction was moonshine and her perambulatory powers without impairment.</p>
|
||||
<p>When the spell was removed Miss Rankin sat up, looking a little bewildered at first, and then rose to her feet, walking straight across the room with the grace, the sureness and the ease of a Diana, a Leslie-Carter, or a Vassar basketball champion. Miss Annabel’s sad face was now lit with hope and joy. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Rankin of Southern susceptibility wept a little, delightedly, upon a minute lace handkerchief. Miss Annabel continued to walk about firmly and accurately, in absolute control of the machinery necessary for her so to do. Doctor Prince quietly congratulated Professor Adami, and then stepped forward, smilingly rubbing his nose glasses with an air. His position enabled him to overshadow the hypnotizer who, contented to occupy the background temporarily, was busy estimating in his mind with how large a bill for services he would dare to embellish the occasion when he should come to the front.</p>
|
||||
<p>When the spell was removed Miss Rankin sat up, looking a little bewildered at first, and then rose to her feet, walking straight across the room with the grace, the sureness and the ease of a Diana, a Leslie-Carter, or a Vassar basketball champion. Miss Annabel’s sad face was now lit with hope and joy. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Rankin of Southern susceptibility wept a little, delightedly, upon a minute lace handkerchief. Miss Annabel continued to walk about firmly and accurately, in absolute control of the machinery necessary for her so to do. Doctor Prince quietly congratulated Professor Adami, and then stepped forward, smilingly rubbing his nose glasses with an air. His position enabled him to overshadow the hypnotizer who, contented to occupy the background temporarily, was busy estimating in his mind with how large a bill for services he would dare to embellish the occasion when he should come to the front.</p>
|
||||
<p>Amid repeated expressions of gratitude, the two professional gentlemen made their adieus, a little elated at the success of the treatment which, with one of them, had been an experiment, with the other an exhibition.</p>
|
||||
<p>As the door closed behind them. Miss Annabel, her usually serious and pensive temper somewhat enlivened by the occasion, sat at the piano and dashed into a stirring march. Outside, the two men moving toward the elevator heard a scream of alarm from her and hastened back. They found her on the piano-stool, with one hand still pressing the keys. The other arm was extended rigidly to its full length behind her, its fingers tightly clenched into a pink and pretty little fist. Her mother was bending over her, joining in the alarm and surprise. Miss Rankin rose from the stool, now quiet, but again depressed and sad.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t know what did it,” she said, plaintively; “I began to play and that arm shot back. It wouldn’t stay near the piano while the other one was there.”</p>
|
||||
@ -44,7 +44,7 @@
|
||||
<p>A little surprised, but smiling acquiescence, Annabel brought the articles from another room.</p>
|
||||
<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 <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> 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>“Dear Miss and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> 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, “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, rhythmic step. She played several difficult 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>
|
||||
@ -54,7 +54,7 @@
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">T.</abbr> 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 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 <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ashburton, his fingers still hovering around 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!’ ” <abbr>Mr.</abbr> 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>“I believe I mentioned,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ashburton, his fingers still hovering around 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!’ ” <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> 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>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:salutation">My dearest Ripley:</p>
|
||||
@ -70,10 +70,10 @@
|
||||
<p>Being deprived of the aid of his consolation cylinders, <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">T.</abbr> Ripley Ashburton sat, gloomy, revolving things in his mind.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ah!” exclaimed Doctor Prince, aloud, but addressing the exclamation to himself; “driven from the arms to the heart!” He perceived that the mysterious hereditary contrariety had, indeed, taken up its lodging in that tender organ of the afflicted maiden.</p>
|
||||
<p>The gilded youth was dismissed, with the promise that Doctor Prince would make a professional call upon Miss Rankin. He did so soon, in company with Professor Adami, after they had discussed the strange course taken by this annoying heritage of the Bealls and Rankins. This time, as the location of the disorder required that the subject be approached with ingenuity, some diplomacy was exercised before the young lady could be induced to submit herself to the professor’s art. But evidently she did so, and emerged from the trance as usual without a trace of unpleasant effect.</p>
|
||||
<p>With much interest and some anxiety Doctor Prince passed several days awaiting the report of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ashburton, who, indeed, of all others would have to be depended upon to observe improvements, if any had occurred. One morning that youth dropped in, jubilant.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s all right, you know,” he declared, cheerfully. “Miss Rankin’s herself again. She’s as sweet as cream, and the trouble’s all off. Never a cross word or look. I’m her ducky, all right. She won’t believe what I tell her about the way she used to treat me. Intimates I make up the stories. But it’s all right now—everything’s running on rubber tires. Awfully obliged to you and the old boy—er—the medium, you know. And I say, now, Doctor Prince, there’s a wonderful improvement in Miss Rankin in every way. She used to be rather stiff, don’t you understand—sort of superior, in a way—bookish, and a habit of thinking things, you know. Well, she’s cured all round—she’s a topper now of any bunch in the set—swell and stylish and lively! Oh, the crowd will fall in to her lead when she becomes <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> <abbr>T.</abbr> Ripley. Now, I say. Doctor Prince, you and the—er—medium gentleman come and take supper tonight with <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> and Miss Rankin and me. I’d be delighted if you would, now—I would indeed—just for you to see, you know, the improvement in Miss Rankin.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It transpired that Doctor Prince and Professor Adami accepted <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ashburton’s invitation. They convened at the hotel in the rooms of the Rankins. From there they were to proceed to the restaurant honoured by <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ashburton’s patronage.</p>
|
||||
<p>When Miss Rankin swept gracefully into the room the professional gentlemen felt fascination and surprise conflicting in their feelings. She was radiant, bewitching, lively to effervescence. Her mother and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ashburton hung, enraptured, upon her looks and words. She was most becomingly clothed in pale blue.</p>
|
||||
<p>With much interest and some anxiety Doctor Prince passed several days awaiting the report of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ashburton, who, indeed, of all others would have to be depended upon to observe improvements, if any had occurred. One morning that youth dropped in, jubilant.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s all right, you know,” he declared, cheerfully. “Miss Rankin’s herself again. She’s as sweet as cream, and the trouble’s all off. Never a cross word or look. I’m her ducky, all right. She won’t believe what I tell her about the way she used to treat me. Intimates I make up the stories. But it’s all right now—everything’s running on rubber tires. Awfully obliged to you and the old boy—er—the medium, you know. And I say, now, Doctor Prince, there’s a wonderful improvement in Miss Rankin in every way. She used to be rather stiff, don’t you understand—sort of superior, in a way—bookish, and a habit of thinking things, you know. Well, she’s cured all round—she’s a topper now of any bunch in the set—swell and stylish and lively! Oh, the crowd will fall in to her lead when she becomes <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> <abbr>T.</abbr> Ripley. Now, I say. Doctor Prince, you and the—er—medium gentleman come and take supper tonight with <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> and Miss Rankin and me. I’d be delighted if you would, now—I would indeed—just for you to see, you know, the improvement in Miss Rankin.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It transpired that Doctor Prince and Professor Adami accepted <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ashburton’s invitation. They convened at the hotel in the rooms of the Rankins. From there they were to proceed to the restaurant honoured by <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ashburton’s patronage.</p>
|
||||
<p>When Miss Rankin swept gracefully into the room the professional gentlemen felt fascination and surprise conflicting in their feelings. She was radiant, bewitching, lively to effervescence. Her mother and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ashburton hung, enraptured, upon her looks and words. She was most becomingly clothed in pale blue.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, bother!” she suddenly exclaimed, most vivaciously, “I don’t like this dress, after all. You must all wait,” she commanded, with a captivating fling of her train, “until I change.” Half an hour later she returned, magnificent in a stunning costume of black lace.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll walk with you downstairs, Professor Adami,” she declared, with a charming smile. Halfway down she left his side abruptly and joined Doctor Prince. “You’ve been such a benefit to me,” she said. “It’s such a relief to get rid of that horrid feud thing. Heavens! Ripley, did you forget those bonbons? Oh, this horrid black dress! I shouldn’t have worn it; it makes me think of funerals. Did you get the scent of those lilacs then? It makes me think of the Kentucky mountains. How I wish we were back there.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Aren’t you fond of New York, then?” asked Doctor Prince, regarding her interestedly.</p>
|
||||
@ -84,10 +84,10 @@
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said Ashburton, cheerily, “I thought you said a carriage.”</p>
|
||||
<p>In obedience to orders the carriage rolled away and an open auto glided up in its place.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Stuffy, smelly thing!” cried Miss Rankin, with a winsome pout. “We’ll walk. Ripley, you and Doctor Prince look out for mamma. Come on, Professor Adami.” The indulgent victims of the charming beauty obeyed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The dear, dear child!” exclaimed <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Rankin, happily, to Doctor Prince. “How full of spirits and life she is getting to be! She’s so much improved from her old self.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The dear, dear child!” exclaimed <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Rankin, happily, to Doctor Prince. “How full of spirits and life she is getting to be! She’s so much improved from her old self.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Lots,” said Ashburton, proudly and fatuously. “She’s picked up the regular metropolitan gaits. Chic and swell don’t begin to express her. She’s cut out the pensive thought business. Up-to-date. Why she changes her mind every two minutes. That’s Annabel.”</p>
|
||||
<p>At the fashionable restaurant where they were soon seated, Doctor Prince found his curiosity and interest engaged by Miss Rankin’s behaviour. She was in an agreeably fascinating humour. Her actions were such as might be expected from an adored child whose vacillating whims were indulged by groveling relatives. She ordered article after article from the bill of fare, petulantly countermanding nearly everyone when they were set before her. Waiters flew and returned, collided, conciliated, apologized, and danced at her bidding. Her speech was quick and lively, deliciously inconsistent, abounding in contradictions, conflicting statements, “bulls,” discrepancies and nonconformities. In short, she seemed to have acquired within the space of a few days all that inconsequent, illogical frothiness that passes current among certain circles of fashionable life.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> <abbr>T.</abbr> Ripley Ashburton showed a doting appreciation and an addled delight at the new charms of his fiancée—charms that he at once recognized as the legal tender of his set.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> <abbr>T.</abbr> Ripley Ashburton showed a doting appreciation and an addled delight at the new charms of his fiancée—charms that he at once recognized as the legal tender of his set.</p>
|
||||
<p>Later, when the party had broken up, Doctor Prince and Professor Adami stood, for a moment, at a corner, where their ways were to diverge.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well,” said the professor, who was genially softened by the excellent supper and wine, “this time our young lady seems to be more fortunate. The malady has been eradicated completely from her entity. Yes, sir, in good time, our school will be recognized by all.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Doctor Prince scrutinized the handsome, refined countenance of the hypnotist. He saw nothing there to indicate that his own diagnosis was even guessed at by that gentleman.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -31,18 +31,18 @@
|
||||
<p>“If I can be of any aid,” I said, warming, “the two bottles of—er—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Tartrate of antimony and potash, and tartrate of soda and potash.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Shall henceforth sit side by side,” I concluded, firmly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, there’s another thing,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bolder. “For an excipient in manipulating a pill mass which do you prefer—the magnesia carbonate or the pulverised glycerrhiza radix?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, there’s another thing,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bolder. “For an excipient in manipulating a pill mass which do you prefer—the magnesia carbonate or the pulverised glycerrhiza radix?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The—er—magnesia,” I said. It was easier to say than the other word.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bolder glanced at me distrustfully through his spectacles.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bolder glanced at me distrustfully through his spectacles.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Give me the glycerrhiza,” said he. “Magnesia cakes.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Here’s another one of these fake aphasia cases,” he said, presently, handing me his newspaper, and laying his finger upon an article. “I don’t believe in ’em. I put nine out of ten of ’em down as frauds. A man gets sick of his business and his folks and wants to have a good time. He skips out somewhere, and when they find him he pretends to have lost his memory—don’t know his own name, and won’t even recognize the strawberry mark on his wife’s left shoulder. Aphasia! Tut! Why can’t they stay at home and forget?”</p>
|
||||
<p>I took the paper and read, after the pungent headlines, the following:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“<b>Denver</b>, June 12.—Elwyn <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">C.</abbr> Bellford, a prominent lawyer, is mysteriously missing from his home since three days ago, and all efforts to locate him have been in vain. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bellford is a well-known citizen of the highest standing, and has enjoyed a large and lucrative law practice. He is married and owns a fine home and the most extensive private library in the State. On the day of his disappearance, he drew quite a large sum of money from his bank. No one can be found who saw him after he left the bank. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bellford was a man of singularly quiet and domestic tastes, and seemed to find his happiness in his home and profession. If any clue at all exists to his strange disappearance, it may be found in the fact that for some months he has been deeply absorbed in an important law case in connection with the <abbr>Q.</abbr> <abbr>Y.</abbr> and <abbr>Z.</abbr> Railroad Company. It is feared that overwork may have affected his mind. Every effort is being made to discover the whereabouts of the missing man.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<b>Denver</b>, June 12.—Elwyn <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">C.</abbr> Bellford, a prominent lawyer, is mysteriously missing from his home since three days ago, and all efforts to locate him have been in vain. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bellford is a well-known citizen of the highest standing, and has enjoyed a large and lucrative law practice. He is married and owns a fine home and the most extensive private library in the State. On the day of his disappearance, he drew quite a large sum of money from his bank. No one can be found who saw him after he left the bank. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bellford was a man of singularly quiet and domestic tastes, and seemed to find his happiness in his home and profession. If any clue at all exists to his strange disappearance, it may be found in the fact that for some months he has been deeply absorbed in an important law case in connection with the <abbr>Q.</abbr> <abbr>Y.</abbr> and <abbr>Z.</abbr> Railroad Company. It is feared that overwork may have affected his mind. Every effort is being made to discover the whereabouts of the missing man.”</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“It seems to me you are not altogether uncynical, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bolder,” I said, after I had read the despatch. “This has the sound, to me, of a genuine case. Why should this man, prosperous, happily married, and respected, choose suddenly to abandon everything? I know that these lapses of memory do occur, and that men do find themselves adrift without a name, a history or a home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, gammon and jalap!” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bolder. “It’s larks they’re after. There’s too much education nowadays. Men know about aphasia, and they use it for an excuse. The women are wise, too. When it’s all over they look you in the eye, as scientific as you please, and say: ‘He hypnotized me.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bolder diverted, but did not aid, me with his comments and philosophy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It seems to me you are not altogether uncynical, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bolder,” I said, after I had read the despatch. “This has the sound, to me, of a genuine case. Why should this man, prosperous, happily married, and respected, choose suddenly to abandon everything? I know that these lapses of memory do occur, and that men do find themselves adrift without a name, a history or a home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, gammon and jalap!” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bolder. “It’s larks they’re after. There’s too much education nowadays. Men know about aphasia, and they use it for an excuse. The women are wise, too. When it’s all over they look you in the eye, as scientific as you please, and say: ‘He hypnotized me.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bolder diverted, but did not aid, me with his comments and philosophy.</p>
|
||||
<p>We arrived in New York about ten at night. I rode in a cab to a hotel, and I wrote my name “Edward Pinkhammer” in the register. As I did so I felt pervade me a splendid, wild, intoxicating buoyancy—a sense of unlimited freedom, of newly attained possibilities. I was just born into the world. The old fetters—whatever they had been—were stricken from my hands and feet. The future lay before me a clear road such as an infant enters, and I could set out upon it equipped with a man’s learning and experience.</p>
|
||||
<p>I thought the hotel clerk looked at me five seconds too long. I had no baggage.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The Druggists’ Convention,” I said. “My trunk has somehow failed to arrive.” I drew out a roll of money.</p>
|
||||
@ -55,20 +55,20 @@
|
||||
<p>The following few days were as gold and silver. Edward Pinkhammer, yet counting back to his birth by hours only, knew the rare joy of having come upon so diverting a world full-fledged and unrestrained. I sat entranced on the magic carpets provided in theatres and roof-gardens, that transported one into strange and delightful lands full of frolicsome music, pretty girls and grotesque drolly extravagant parodies upon human kind. I went here and there at my own dear will, bound by no limits of space, time or comportment. I dined in weird cabarets, at weirder tables d’hôte to the sound of Hungarian music and the wild shouts of mercurial artists and sculptors. Or, again, where the night life quivers in the electric glare like a kinetoscopic picture, and the millinery of the world, and its jewels, and the ones whom they adorn, and the men who make all three possible are met for good cheer and the spectacular effect. And among all these scenes that I have mentioned I learned one thing that I never knew before. And that is that the key to liberty is not in the hands of License, but Convention holds it. Comity has a tollgate at which you must pay, or you may not enter the land of Freedom. In all the glitter, the seeming disorder, the parade, the abandon, I saw this law, unobtrusive, yet like iron, prevail. Therefore, in Manhattan you must obey these unwritten laws, and then you will be freest of the free. If you decline to be bound by them, you put on shackles.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sometimes, as my mood urged me, I would seek the stately, softly murmuring palm rooms, redolent with highborn life and delicate restraint, in which to dine. Again I would go down to the waterways in steamers packed with vociferous, bedecked, unchecked lovemaking clerks and shop-girls to their crude pleasures on the island shores. And there was always Broadway—glistening, opulent, wily, varying, desirable Broadway—growing upon one like an opium habit.</p>
|
||||
<p>One afternoon as I entered my hotel a stout man with a big nose and a black mustache blocked my way in the corridor. When I would have passed around him, he greet me with offensive familiarity.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello, Bellford!” he cried, loudly. “What the deuce are you doing in New York? Didn’t know anything could drag you away from that old book den of yours. Is <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">B.</abbr> along or is this a little business run alone, eh?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello, Bellford!” he cried, loudly. “What the deuce are you doing in New York? Didn’t know anything could drag you away from that old book den of yours. Is <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">B.</abbr> along or is this a little business run alone, eh?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You have made a mistake, sir,” I said, coldly, releasing my hand from his grasp. “My name is Pinkhammer. You will excuse me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The man dropped to one side, apparently astonished. As I walked to the clerk’s desk I heard him call to a bell boy and say something about telegraph blanks.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You will give me my bill,” I said to the clerk, “and have my baggage brought down in half an hour. I do not care to remain where I am annoyed by confidence men.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I moved that afternoon to another hotel, a sedate, old-fashioned one on lower Fifth Avenue.</p>
|
||||
<p>There was a restaurant a little way off Broadway where one could be served almost al fresco in a tropic array of screening flora. Quiet and luxury and a perfect service made it an ideal place in which to take luncheon or refreshment. One afternoon I was there picking my way to a table among the ferns when I felt my sleeve caught.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bellford!” exclaimed an amazingly sweet voice.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bellford!” exclaimed an amazingly sweet voice.</p>
|
||||
<p>I turned quickly to see a lady seated alone—a lady of about thirty, with exceedingly handsome eyes, who looked at me as though I had been her very dear friend.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You were about to pass me,” she said, accusingly. “Don’t tell me you do not know me. Why should we not shake hands—at least once in fifteen years?”</p>
|
||||
<p>I shook hands with her at once. I took a chair opposite her at the table. I summoned with my eyebrows a hovering waiter. The lady was philandering with an orange ice. I ordered a crème de menthe. Her hair was reddish bronze. You could not look at it, because you could not look away from her eyes. But you were conscious of it as you are conscious of sunset while you look into the profundities of a wood at twilight.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Are you sure you know me?” I asked.</p>
|
||||
<p>“No,” she said, smiling. “I was never sure of that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What would you think,” I said, a little anxiously, “if I were to tell you that my name is Edward Pinkhammer, from Cornopolis, Kansas?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What would I think?” she repeated, with a merry glance. “Why, that you had not brought <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellford to New York with you, of course. I do wish you had. I would have liked to see Marian.” Her voice lowered slightly—“You haven’t changed much, Elwyn.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What would I think?” she repeated, with a merry glance. “Why, that you had not brought <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellford to New York with you, of course. I do wish you had. I would have liked to see Marian.” Her voice lowered slightly—“You haven’t changed much, Elwyn.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I felt her wonderful eyes searching mine and my face more closely.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, you have,” she amended, and there was a soft, exultant note in her latest tones; “I see it now. You haven’t forgotten. You haven’t forgotten for a year or a day or an hour. I told you you never could.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I poked my straw anxiously in the crème de menthe.</p>
|
||||
@ -87,9 +87,9 @@
|
||||
<p>“My name is Edward Pinkhammer,” I said. “I came with the delegates to the Druggists’ National Convention. There is a movement on foot for arranging a new position for the bottles of tartrate of antimony and tartrate of potash, in which, very likely, you would take little interest.”</p>
|
||||
<p>A shining landau stopped before the entrance. The lady rose. I took her hand, and bowed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am deeply sorry,” I said to her, “that I cannot remember. I could explain, but fear you would not understand. You will not concede Pinkhammer; and I really cannot at all conceive of the—the roses and other things.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Goodbye, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bellford,” she said, with her happy, sorrowful smile, as she stepped into her carriage.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Goodbye, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bellford,” she said, with her happy, sorrowful smile, as she stepped into her carriage.</p>
|
||||
<p>I attended the theatre that night. When I returned to my hotel, a quiet man in dark clothes, who seemed interested in rubbing his finger nails with a silk handkerchief, appeared, magically, at my side.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pinkhammer,” he said, giving the bulk of his attention to his forefinger, “may I request you to step aside with me for a little conversation? There is a room here.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Pinkhammer,” he said, giving the bulk of his attention to his forefinger, “may I request you to step aside with me for a little conversation? There is a room here.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Certainly,” I answered.</p>
|
||||
<p>He conducted me into a small, private parlor. A lady and a gentleman were there. The lady, I surmised, would have been unusually good-looking had her features not been clouded by an expression of keen worry and fatigue. She was of a style of figure and possessed coloring and features that were agreeable to my fancy. She was in a traveling dress; she fixed upon me an earnest look of extreme anxiety, and pressed an unsteady hand to her bosom. I think she would have started forward, but the gentleman arrested her movement with an authoritative motion of his hand. He then came, himself, to meet me. He was a man of forty, a little gray about the temples, and with a strong, thoughtful face.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bellford, old man,” he said, cordially, “I’m glad to see you again. Of course we know everything is all right. I warned you, you know, that you were overdoing it. Now, you’ll go back with us, and be yourself again in no time.”</p>
|
||||
@ -103,7 +103,7 @@
|
||||
<p>He led her to the door.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Go to your room for a while,” I heard him say. “I will remain and talk with him. His mind? No, I think not—only a portion of the brain. Yes, I am sure he will recover. Go to your room and leave me with him.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The lady disappeared. The man in dark clothes also went outside, still manicuring himself in a thoughtful way. I think he waited in the hall.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I would like to talk with you a while, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pinkhammer, if I may,” said the gentleman who remained.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I would like to talk with you a while, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Pinkhammer, if I may,” said the gentleman who remained.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Very well, if you care to,” I replied, “and will excuse me if I take it comfortably; I am rather tired.” I stretched myself upon a couch by a window and lit a cigar. He drew a chair nearby.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Let us speak to the point,” he said, soothingly. “Your name is not Pinkhammer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I know that as well as you do,” I said, coolly. “But a man must have a name of some sort. I can assure you that I do not extravagantly admire the name of Pinkhammer. But when one christens one’s self suddenly, the fine names do not seem to suggest themselves. But, suppose it had been Scheringhausen or Scroggins! I think I did very well with Pinkhammer.”</p>
|
||||
@ -111,7 +111,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“She is what I would call a fine-looking woman,” I said, after a judicial pause. “I particularly admire the shade of brown in her hair.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“She is a wife to be proud of. Since your disappearance, nearly two weeks ago, she has scarcely closed her eyes. We learned that you were in New York through a telegram sent by Isidore Newman, a traveling man from Denver. He said that he had met you in a hotel here, and that you did not recognize him.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I think I remember the occasion,” I said. “The fellow called me ‘Bellford,’ if I am not mistaken. But don’t you think it about time, now, for you to introduce yourself?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am Robert Volney—Doctor Volney. I have been your close friend for twenty years, and your physician for fifteen. I came with <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bellford to trace you as soon as we got the telegram. Try, Elwyn, old man—try to remember!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am Robert Volney—Doctor Volney. I have been your close friend for twenty years, and your physician for fifteen. I came with <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bellford to trace you as soon as we got the telegram. Try, Elwyn, old man—try to remember!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What’s the use to try?” I asked, with a little frown. “You say you are a physician. Is aphasia curable? When a man loses his memory does it return slowly, or suddenly?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sometimes gradually and imperfectly; sometimes as suddenly as it went.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Will you undertake the treatment of my case, Doctor Volney?” I asked.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Me?” said Jimmy, still blankly virtuous. “Why, warden, I never was in Springfield in my life!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Take him back, Cronin!” said the warden, “and fix him up with outgoing clothes. Unlock him at seven in the morning, and let him come to the bullpen. Better think over my advice, Valentine.”</p>
|
||||
<p>At a quarter past seven on the next morning Jimmy stood in the warden’s outer office. He had on a suit of the villainously fitting, ready-made clothes and a pair of the stiff, squeaky shoes that the state furnishes to its discharged compulsory guests.</p>
|
||||
<p>The clerk handed him a railroad ticket and the five-dollar bill with which the law expected him to rehabilitate himself into good citizenship and prosperity. The warden gave him a cigar, and shook hands. Valentine, 9762, was chronicled on the books, “Pardoned by Governor,” and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> James Valentine walked out into the sunshine.</p>
|
||||
<p>The clerk handed him a railroad ticket and the five-dollar bill with which the law expected him to rehabilitate himself into good citizenship and prosperity. The warden gave him a cigar, and shook hands. Valentine, 9762, was chronicled on the books, “Pardoned by Governor,” and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> James Valentine walked out into the sunshine.</p>
|
||||
<p>Disregarding the song of the birds, the waving green trees, and the smell of the flowers, Jimmy headed straight for a restaurant. There he tasted the first sweet joys of liberty in the shape of a broiled chicken and a bottle of white wine—followed by a cigar a grade better than the one the warden had given him. From there he proceeded leisurely to the depot. He tossed a quarter into the hat of a blind man sitting by the door, and boarded his train. Three hours set him down in a little town near the state line. He went to the café of one Mike Dolan and shook hands with Mike, who was alone behind the bar.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sorry we couldn’t make it sooner, Jimmy, me boy,” said Mike. “But we had that protest from Springfield to buck against, and the governor nearly balked. Feeling all right?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Fine,” said Jimmy. “Got my key?”</p>
|
||||
@ -26,8 +26,8 @@
|
||||
<p>“Me?” said Jimmy, in a puzzled tone. “I don’t understand. I’m representing the New York Amalgamated Short Snap Biscuit Cracker and Frazzled Wheat Company.”</p>
|
||||
<p>This statement delighted Mike to such an extent that Jimmy had to take a seltzer-and-milk on the spot. He never touched “hard” drinks.</p>
|
||||
<p>A week after the release of Valentine, 9762, there was a neat job of safe-burglary done in Richmond, Indiana, with no clue to the author. A scant eight hundred dollars was all that was secured. Two weeks after that a patented, improved, burglarproof safe in Logansport was opened like a cheese to the tune of fifteen hundred dollars, currency; securities and silver untouched. That began to interest the rogue-catchers. Then an old-fashioned bank-safe in Jefferson City became active and threw out of its crater an eruption of banknotes amounting to five thousand dollars. The losses were now high enough to bring the matter up into Ben Price’s class of work. By comparing notes, a remarkable similarity in the methods of the burglaries was noticed. Ben Price investigated the scenes of the robberies, and was heard to remark:</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s Dandy Jim Valentine’s autograph. He’s resumed business. Look at that combination knob—jerked out as easy as pulling up a radish in wet weather. He’s got the only clamps that can do it. And look how clean those tumblers were punched out! Jimmy never has to drill but one hole. Yes, I guess I want <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Valentine. He’ll do his bit next time without any short-time or clemency foolishness.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ben Price knew Jimmy’s habits. He had learned them while working up the Springfield case. Long jumps, quick getaways, no confederates, and a taste for good society—these ways had helped <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Valentine to become noted as a successful dodger of retribution. It was given out that Ben Price had taken up the trail of the elusive cracksman, and other people with burglarproof safes felt more at ease.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s Dandy Jim Valentine’s autograph. He’s resumed business. Look at that combination knob—jerked out as easy as pulling up a radish in wet weather. He’s got the only clamps that can do it. And look how clean those tumblers were punched out! Jimmy never has to drill but one hole. Yes, I guess I want <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Valentine. He’ll do his bit next time without any short-time or clemency foolishness.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ben Price knew Jimmy’s habits. He had learned them while working up the Springfield case. Long jumps, quick getaways, no confederates, and a taste for good society—these ways had helped <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Valentine to become noted as a successful dodger of retribution. It was given out that Ben Price had taken up the trail of the elusive cracksman, and other people with burglarproof safes felt more at ease.</p>
|
||||
<p>One afternoon Jimmy Valentine and his suitcase climbed out of the mail-hack in Elmore, a little town five miles off the railroad down in the blackjack country of Arkansas. Jimmy, looking like an athletic young senior just home from college, went down the board sidewalk toward the hotel.</p>
|
||||
<p>A young lady crossed the street, passed him at the corner and entered a door over which was the sign, “The Elmore Bank.” Jimmy Valentine looked into her eyes, forgot what he was, and became another man. She lowered her eyes and coloured slightly. Young men of Jimmy’s style and looks were scarce in Elmore.</p>
|
||||
<p>Jimmy collared a boy that was loafing on the steps of the bank as if he were one of the stockholders, and began to ask him questions about the town, feeding him dimes at intervals. By and by the young lady came out, looking royally unconscious of the young man with the suitcase, and went her way.</p>
|
||||
@ -35,11 +35,11 @@
|
||||
<p>“Naw,” said the boy. “She’s Annabel Adams. Her pa owns this bank. What’d you come to Elmore for? Is that a gold watch-chain? I’m going to get a bulldog. Got any more dimes?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Jimmy went to the Planters’ Hotel, registered as Ralph <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">D.</abbr> Spencer, and engaged a room. He leaned on the desk and declared his platform to the clerk. He said he had come to Elmore to look for a location to go into business. How was the shoe business, now, in the town? He had thought of the shoe business. Was there an opening?</p>
|
||||
<p>The clerk was impressed by the clothes and manner of Jimmy. He, himself, was something of a pattern of fashion to the thinly gilded youth of Elmore, but he now perceived his shortcomings. While trying to figure out Jimmy’s manner of tying his four-in-hand he cordially gave information.</p>
|
||||
<p>Yes, there ought to be a good opening in the shoe line. There wasn’t an exclusive shoe-store in the place. The dry-goods and general stores handled them. Business in all lines was fairly good. Hoped <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Spencer would decide to locate in Elmore. He would find it a pleasant town to live in, and the people very sociable.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Spencer thought he would stop over in the town a few days and look over the situation. No, the clerk needn’t call the boy. He would carry up his suitcase, himself; it was rather heavy.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ralph Spencer, the phoenix that arose from Jimmy Valentine’s ashes—ashes left by the flame of a sudden and alterative attack of love—remained in Elmore, and prospered. He opened a shoe-store and secured a good run of trade.</p>
|
||||
<p>Yes, there ought to be a good opening in the shoe line. There wasn’t an exclusive shoe-store in the place. The dry-goods and general stores handled them. Business in all lines was fairly good. Hoped <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Spencer would decide to locate in Elmore. He would find it a pleasant town to live in, and the people very sociable.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Spencer thought he would stop over in the town a few days and look over the situation. No, the clerk needn’t call the boy. He would carry up his suitcase, himself; it was rather heavy.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ralph Spencer, the phoenix that arose from Jimmy Valentine’s ashes—ashes left by the flame of a sudden and alterative attack of love—remained in Elmore, and prospered. He opened a shoe-store and secured a good run of trade.</p>
|
||||
<p>Socially he was also a success, and made many friends. And he accomplished the wish of his heart. He met Miss Annabel Adams, and became more and more captivated by her charms.</p>
|
||||
<p>At the end of a year the situation of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ralph Spencer was this: he had won the respect of the community, his shoe-store was flourishing, and he and Annabel were engaged to be married in two weeks. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams, the typical, plodding, country banker, approved of Spencer. Annabel’s pride in him almost equalled her affection. He was as much at home in the family of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams and that of Annabel’s married sister as if he were already a member.</p>
|
||||
<p>At the end of a year the situation of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ralph Spencer was this: he had won the respect of the community, his shoe-store was flourishing, and he and Annabel were engaged to be married in two weeks. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Adams, the typical, plodding, country banker, approved of Spencer. Annabel’s pride in him almost equalled her affection. He was as much at home in the family of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Adams and that of Annabel’s married sister as if he were already a member.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day Jimmy sat down in his room and wrote this letter, which he mailed to the safe address of one of his old friends in <abbr>St.</abbr> Louis:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dear Old Pal:</p>
|
||||
@ -52,17 +52,17 @@
|
||||
<p>On the Monday night after Jimmy wrote this letter, Ben Price jogged unobtrusively into Elmore in a livery buggy. He lounged about town in his quiet way until he found out what he wanted to know. From the drugstore across the street from Spencer’s shoe-store he got a good look at Ralph <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">D.</abbr> Spencer.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Going to marry the banker’s daughter are you, Jimmy?” said Ben to himself, softly. “Well, I don’t know!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The next morning Jimmy took breakfast at the Adamses. He was going to Little Rock that day to order his wedding-suit and buy something nice for Annabel. That would be the first time he had left town since he came to Elmore. It had been more than a year now since those last professional “jobs,” and he thought he could safely venture out.</p>
|
||||
<p>After breakfast quite a family party went downtown together—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams, Annabel, Jimmy, and Annabel’s married sister with her two little girls, aged five and nine. They came by the hotel where Jimmy still boarded, and he ran up to his room and brought along his suitcase. Then they went on to the bank. There stood Jimmy’s horse and buggy and Dolph Gibson, who was going to drive him over to the railroad station.</p>
|
||||
<p>All went inside the high, carved oak railings into the banking-room—Jimmy included, for <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams’s future son-in-law was welcome anywhere. The clerks were pleased to be greeted by the good-looking, agreeable young man who was going to marry Miss Annabel. Jimmy set his suitcase down. Annabel, whose heart was bubbling with happiness and lively youth, put on Jimmy’s hat, and picked up the suitcase. “Wouldn’t I make a nice drummer?” said Annabel. “My! Ralph, how heavy it is? Feels like it was full of gold bricks.”</p>
|
||||
<p>After breakfast quite a family party went downtown together—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Adams, Annabel, Jimmy, and Annabel’s married sister with her two little girls, aged five and nine. They came by the hotel where Jimmy still boarded, and he ran up to his room and brought along his suitcase. Then they went on to the bank. There stood Jimmy’s horse and buggy and Dolph Gibson, who was going to drive him over to the railroad station.</p>
|
||||
<p>All went inside the high, carved oak railings into the banking-room—Jimmy included, for <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Adams’s future son-in-law was welcome anywhere. The clerks were pleased to be greeted by the good-looking, agreeable young man who was going to marry Miss Annabel. Jimmy set his suitcase down. Annabel, whose heart was bubbling with happiness and lively youth, put on Jimmy’s hat, and picked up the suitcase. “Wouldn’t I make a nice drummer?” said Annabel. “My! Ralph, how heavy it is? Feels like it was full of gold bricks.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Lot of nickel-plated shoehorns in there,” said Jimmy, coolly, “that I’m going to return. Thought I’d save express charges by taking them up. I’m getting awfully economical.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Elmore Bank had just put in a new safe and vault. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams was very proud of it, and insisted on an inspection by everyone. The vault was a small one, but it had a new, patented door. It fastened with three solid steel bolts thrown simultaneously with a single handle, and had a time-lock. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams beamingly explained its workings to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Spencer, who showed a courteous but not too intelligent interest. The two children, May and Agatha, were delighted by the shining metal and funny clock and knobs.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Elmore Bank had just put in a new safe and vault. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Adams was very proud of it, and insisted on an inspection by everyone. The vault was a small one, but it had a new, patented door. It fastened with three solid steel bolts thrown simultaneously with a single handle, and had a time-lock. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Adams beamingly explained its workings to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Spencer, who showed a courteous but not too intelligent interest. The two children, May and Agatha, were delighted by the shining metal and funny clock and knobs.</p>
|
||||
<p>While they were thus engaged Ben Price sauntered in and leaned on his elbow, looking casually inside between the railings. He told the teller that he didn’t want anything; he was just waiting for a man he knew.</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly there was a scream or two from the women, and a commotion. Unperceived by the elders, May, the nine-year-old girl, in a spirit of play, had shut Agatha in the vault. She had then shot the bolts and turned the knob of the combination as she had seen <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams do.</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly there was a scream or two from the women, and a commotion. Unperceived by the elders, May, the nine-year-old girl, in a spirit of play, had shut Agatha in the vault. She had then shot the bolts and turned the knob of the combination as she had seen <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Adams do.</p>
|
||||
<p>The old banker sprang to the handle and tugged at it for a moment. “The door can’t be opened,” he groaned. “The clock hasn’t been wound nor the combination set.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Agatha’s mother screamed again, hysterically.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hush!” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams, raising his trembling hand. “All be quite for a moment. Agatha!” he called as loudly as he could. “Listen to me.” During the following silence they could just hear the faint sound of the child wildly shrieking in the dark vault in a panic of terror.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hush!” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Adams, raising his trembling hand. “All be quite for a moment. Agatha!” he called as loudly as he could. “Listen to me.” During the following silence they could just hear the faint sound of the child wildly shrieking in the dark vault in a panic of terror.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My precious darling!” wailed the mother. “She will die of fright! Open the door! Oh, break it open! Can’t you men do something?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There isn’t a man nearer than Little Rock who can open that door,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams, in a shaky voice. “My God! Spencer, what shall we do? That child—she can’t stand it long in there. There isn’t enough air, and, besides, she’ll go into convulsions from fright.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There isn’t a man nearer than Little Rock who can open that door,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Adams, in a shaky voice. “My God! Spencer, what shall we do? That child—she can’t stand it long in there. There isn’t enough air, and, besides, she’ll go into convulsions from fright.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Agatha’s mother, frantic now, beat the door of the vault with her hands. Somebody wildly suggested dynamite. Annabel turned to Jimmy, her large eyes full of anguish, but not yet despairing. To a woman nothing seems quite impossible to the powers of the man she worships.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Can’t you do something, Ralph—<em>try</em>, won’t you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>He looked at her with a queer, soft smile on his lips and in his keen eyes.</p>
|
||||
@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
|
||||
<p>At the door a big man stood somewhat in his way.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello, Ben!” said Jimmy, still with his strange smile. “Got around at last, have you? Well, let’s go. I don’t know that it makes much difference, now.”</p>
|
||||
<p>And then Ben Price acted rather strangely.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Guess you’re mistaken, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Spencer,” he said. “Don’t believe I recognize you. Your buggy’s waiting for you, ain’t it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Guess you’re mistaken, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Spencer,” he said. “Don’t believe I recognize you. Your buggy’s waiting for you, ain’t it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>And Ben Price turned and strolled down the street.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -114,7 +114,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“In the afternoon the interpreter came around and smiled as he laid his hand on the big red jar we usually kept ice-water in.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘The iceman didn’t call today,’ says I. ‘What’s the matter with everything, Sancho?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Ah, yes,’ says the liver-colored linguist. ‘They just tell me in the town. Verree bad act that Señor O’Connor make fight with General Tumbalo. Yes, general Tumbalo great soldier and big mans.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘What’ll they do to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Connor?’ I asks.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘What’ll they do to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> O’Connor?’ I asks.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I talk little while presently with the <i xml:lang="es">Juez de la Paz</i>—what you call Justice-with-the-peace,’ says Sancho. ‘He tell me it verree bad crime that one Señor Americano try kill General Tumbalo. He say they keep señor O’Connor in jail six months; then have trial and shoot him with guns. Verree sorree.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘How about this revolution that was to be pulled off?’ I asks.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh,’ says this Sancho, ‘I think too hot weather for revolution. Revolution better in wintertime. Maybe so next winter. <i xml:lang="es">Quién sabe?</i>’</p>
|
||||
@ -144,7 +144,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I caught hold of his arm.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Don’t look it up,’ says I. ‘Marriage is a lottery anyway. I’m willing to take the risk about the license if you are.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The consul went back to Hooligan Alley with me. Izzy called her ma to come in, but the old lady was picking a chicken in the patio and begged to be excused. So we stood up and the consul performed the ceremony.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That evening <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bowers cooked a great supper of stewed goat, tamales, baked bananas, fricasseed red peppers and coffee. Afterward I sat in the rocking-chair by the front window, and she sat on the floor plunking at a guitar and happy, as she should be, as <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> William <abbr class="eoc" epub:type="z3998:personal-name">T. B.</abbr></p>
|
||||
<p>“That evening <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Bowers cooked a great supper of stewed goat, tamales, baked bananas, fricasseed red peppers and coffee. Afterward I sat in the rocking-chair by the front window, and she sat on the floor plunking at a guitar and happy, as she should be, as <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> William <abbr class="eoc" epub:type="z3998:personal-name">T. B.</abbr></p>
|
||||
<p>“All at once I sprang up in a hurry. I’d forgotten all about O’Connor. I asked Izzy to fix up a lot of truck for him to eat.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘That big, oogly man,’ said Izzy. ‘But all right—he your friend.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I pulled a rose out of a bunch in a jar, and took the grub-basket around to the jail. O’Connor ate like a wolf. Then he wiped his face with a banana peel and said: ‘Have you heard nothing from Dona Isabel yet?’</p>
|
||||
@ -152,11 +152,11 @@
|
||||
<p>“O’Connor pressed the rose to his lips. ‘This is more to me than all the food in the world,’ says he. ‘But the supper was fine. Where did you raise it?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’ve negotiated a standoff at a delicatessen hut downtown,’ I tells him. ‘Rest easy. If there’s anything to be done I’ll do it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“So things went along that way for some weeks. Izzy was a great cook; and if she had had a little more poise of character and smoked a little better brand of tobacco we might have drifted into some sense of responsibility for the honor I had conferred on her. But as time went on I began to hunger for the sight of a real lady standing before me in a streetcar. All I was staying in that land of bilk and money for was because I couldn’t get away, and I thought it no more than decent to stay and see O’Connor shot.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One day our old interpreter drops around and after smoking an hour says that the judge of the peace sent him to request me to call on him. I went to his office in a lemon grove on a hill at the edge of the town; and there I had a surprise. I expected to see one of the usual cinnamon-colored natives in congress gaiters and one of Pizzaro’s cast-off hats. What I saw was an elegant gentleman of a slightly claybank complexion sitting in an upholstered leather chair, sipping a highball and reading <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Humphry Ward. I had smuggled into my brain a few words of Spanish by the help of Izzy, and I began to remark in a rich Andalusian brogue:</p>
|
||||
<p>“One day our old interpreter drops around and after smoking an hour says that the judge of the peace sent him to request me to call on him. I went to his office in a lemon grove on a hill at the edge of the town; and there I had a surprise. I expected to see one of the usual cinnamon-colored natives in congress gaiters and one of Pizzaro’s cast-off hats. What I saw was an elegant gentleman of a slightly claybank complexion sitting in an upholstered leather chair, sipping a highball and reading <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Humphry Ward. I had smuggled into my brain a few words of Spanish by the help of Izzy, and I began to remark in a rich Andalusian brogue:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<i xml:lang="es">Buenas dias, señor. Yo tengo—yo tengo—</i>’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, sit down, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bowers,’ says he. ‘I spent eight years in your country in colleges and law schools. Let me mix you a highball. Lemon peel, or not?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, sit down, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bowers,’ says he. ‘I spent eight years in your country in colleges and law schools. Let me mix you a highball. Lemon peel, or not?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thus we got along. In about half an hour I was beginning to tell him about the scandal in our family when Aunt Elvira ran away with a Cumberland Presbyterian preacher. Then he says to me:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I sent for you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bowers, to let you know that you can have your friend <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Connor now. Of course we had to make a show of punishing him on account of his attack on General Tumbalo. It is arranged that he shall be released tomorrow night. You and he will be conveyed on board the fruit steamer <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Voyager</i>, bound for New York, which lies in the harbor. Your passage will be arranged for.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I sent for you, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bowers, to let you know that you can have your friend <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> O’Connor now. Of course we had to make a show of punishing him on account of his attack on General Tumbalo. It is arranged that he shall be released tomorrow night. You and he will be conveyed on board the fruit steamer <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Voyager</i>, bound for New York, which lies in the harbor. Your passage will be arranged for.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘One moment, judge,’ says I; ‘that revolution—’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The judge lays back in his chair and howls.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Why,’ says he presently, ‘that was all a little joke fixed up by the boys around the courtroom, and one or two of our cut-ups, and a few clerks in the stores. The town is bursting its sides with laughing. The boys made themselves up to be conspirators, and they—what you call it?—stick Señor O’Connor for his money. It is very funny.’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -30,7 +30,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Slayton thought so. And that night he took Miss Puffkin to the theatre. The next night he made vehement love to her in the dim parlour of the boardinghouse. He quoted freely from <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Love Is All</i>; and he wound up with Miss Puffkin’s head on his shoulder, and visions of literary fame dancing in his head.</p>
|
||||
<p>But Slayton did not stop at lovemaking. This, he said to himself, was the turning point of his life; and, like a true sportsman, he “went the limit.” On Thursday night he and Miss Puffkin walked over to the Big Church in the Middle of the Block and were married.</p>
|
||||
<p>Brave Slayton! Châteaubriand died in a garret, Byron courted a widow, Keats starved to death, Poe mixed his drinks, De Quincey hit the pipe, Ade lived in Chicago, James kept on doing it, Dickens wore white socks, De Maupassant wore a straitjacket, Tom Watson became a Populist, Jeremiah wept, all these authors did these things for the sake of literature, but thou didst cap them all; thou marriedst a wife for to carve for thyself a niche in the temple of fame!</p>
|
||||
<p>On Friday morning <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Slayton said she would go over to the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i> office, hand in one or two manuscripts that the editor had given to her to read, and resign her position as stenographer.</p>
|
||||
<p>On Friday morning <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Slayton said she would go over to the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i> office, hand in one or two manuscripts that the editor had given to her to read, and resign her position as stenographer.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Was there anything—er—that—er—you particularly fancied in the stories you are going to turn in?” asked Slayton with a thumping heart.</p>
|
||||
<p>“There was one—a novelette, that I liked so much,” said his wife. “I haven’t read anything in years that I thought was half as nice and true to life.”</p>
|
||||
<p>That afternoon Slayton hurried down to the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i> office. He felt that his reward was close at hand. With a novelette in the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i>, literary reputation would soon be his.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -14,18 +14,18 @@
|
||||
<p>Delia Caruthers did things in six octaves so promisingly in a pine-tree village in the South that her relatives chipped in enough in her chip hat for her to go “North” and “finish.” They could not see her f—, but that is our story.</p>
|
||||
<p>Joe and Delia met in an atelier where a number of art and music students had gathered to discuss chiaroscuro, Wagner, music, Rembrandt’s works, pictures, Waldteufel, wall paper, Chopin and Oolong.</p>
|
||||
<p>Joe and Delia became enamoured one of the other, or each of the other, as you please, and in a short time were married—for (see above), when one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Larrabee began housekeeping in a flat. It was a lonesome flat—something like the A sharp way down at the left-hand end of the keyboard. And they were happy; for they had their Art, and they had each other. And my advice to the rich young man would be—sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor—janitor for the privilege of living in a flat with your Art and your Delia.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Larrabee began housekeeping in a flat. It was a lonesome flat—something like the A sharp way down at the left-hand end of the keyboard. And they were happy; for they had their Art, and they had each other. And my advice to the rich young man would be—sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor—janitor for the privilege of living in a flat with your Art and your Delia.</p>
|
||||
<p>Flat-dwellers shall endorse my dictum that theirs is the only true happiness. If a home is happy it cannot fit too close—let the dresser collapse and become a billiard table; let the mantel turn to a rowing machine, the escritoire to a spare bedchamber, the washstand to an upright piano; let the four walls come together, if they will, so you and your Delia are between. But if home be the other kind, let it be wide and long—enter you at the Golden Gate, hang your hat on Hatteras, your cape on Cape Horn and go out by the Labrador.</p>
|
||||
<p>Joe was painting in the class of the great Magister—you know his fame. His fees are high; his lessons are light—his highlights have brought him renown. Delia was studying under Rosenstock—you know his repute as a disturber of the piano keys.</p>
|
||||
<p>They were mighty happy as long as their money lasted. So is every—but I will not be cynical. Their aims were very clear and defined. Joe was to become capable very soon of turning out pictures that old gentlemen with thin side-whiskers and thick pocketbooks would sandbag one another in his studio for the privilege of buying. Delia was to become familiar and then contemptuous with Music, so that when she saw the orchestra seats and boxes unsold she could have sore throat and lobster in a private dining-room and refuse to go on the stage.</p>
|
||||
<p>But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat—the ardent, voluble chats after the day’s study; the cozy dinners and fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions—ambitions interwoven each with the other’s or else inconsiderable—the mutual help and inspiration; and—overlook my artlessness—stuffed olives and cheese sandwiches at 11 <abbr class="eoc">p.m.</abbr></p>
|
||||
<p>But after a while Art flagged. It sometimes does, even if some switchman doesn’t flag it. Everything going out and nothing coming in, as the vulgarians say. Money was lacking to pay <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Magister and Herr Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard. So, Delia said she must give music lessons to keep the chafing dish bubbling.</p>
|
||||
<p>But after a while Art flagged. It sometimes does, even if some switchman doesn’t flag it. Everything going out and nothing coming in, as the vulgarians say. Money was lacking to pay <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Magister and Herr Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard. So, Delia said she must give music lessons to keep the chafing dish bubbling.</p>
|
||||
<p>For two or three days she went out canvassing for pupils. One evening she came home elated.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Joe, dear,” she said, gleefully, “I’ve a pupil. And, oh, the loveliest people! General—General <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">A. B.</abbr> Pinkney’s daughter—on Seventy-first Street. Such a splendid house, Joe—you ought to see the front door! Byzantine I think you would call it. And inside! Oh, Joe, I never saw anything like it before.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My pupil is his daughter Clementina. I dearly love her already. She’s a delicate thing—dresses always in white; and the sweetest, simplest manners! Only eighteen years old. I’m to give three lessons a week; and, just think, Joe! $5 a lesson. I don’t mind it a bit; for when I get two or three more pupils I can resume my lessons with Herr Rosenstock. Now, smooth out that wrinkle between your brows, dear, and let’s have a nice supper.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s all right for you, Dele,” said Joe, attacking a can of peas with a carving knife and a hatchet, “but how about me? Do you think I’m going to let you hustle for wages while I philander in the regions of high art? Not by the bones of Benvenuto Cellini! I guess I can sell papers or lay cobblestones, and bring in a dollar or two.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Delia came and hung about his neck.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Joe, dear, you are silly. You must keep on at your studies. It is not as if I had quit my music and gone to work at something else. While I teach I learn. I am always with my music. And we can live as happily as millionaires on $15 a week. You mustn’t think of leaving <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Magister.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Joe, dear, you are silly. You must keep on at your studies. It is not as if I had quit my music and gone to work at something else. While I teach I learn. I am always with my music. And we can live as happily as millionaires on $15 a week. You mustn’t think of leaving <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Magister.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said Joe, reaching for the blue scalloped vegetable dish. “But I hate for you to be giving lessons. It isn’t Art. But you’re a trump and a dear to do it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard,” said Delia.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Magister praised the sky in that sketch I made in the park,” said Joe. “And Tinkle gave me permission to hang two of them in his window. I may sell one if the right kind of a moneyed idiot sees them.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -24,19 +24,19 @@
|
||||
<p>I changed cars and shirts once only on the journey. A stranger wanted me to also change a two-dollar bill, but I haughtily declined.</p>
|
||||
<p>The scenery along the entire road to Washington is diversified. You find a portion of it on one hand by looking out of the window, and upon turning the gaze upon the other side the eye is surprised and delighted by discovering some more of it.</p>
|
||||
<p>There were a great many Knights of Pythias on the train. One of them insisted upon my giving him the grip I had with me, but he was unsuccessful.</p>
|
||||
<p>On arriving in Washington, which city I instantly recognized from reading the history of George, I left the car so hastily that I forgot to fee <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pullman’s representative.</p>
|
||||
<p>On arriving in Washington, which city I instantly recognized from reading the history of George, I left the car so hastily that I forgot to fee <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Pullman’s representative.</p>
|
||||
<p>I went immediately to the Capitol.</p>
|
||||
<p>In a spirit of jeu d’esprit I had had made a globular representation of a “rolling stone.” It was of wood, painted a dark color, and about the size of a small cannon ball. I had attached to it a twisted pendant about three inches long to indicate moss. I had resolved to use this in place of a card, thinking people would readily recognize it as an emblem of my paper.</p>
|
||||
<p>I had studied the arrangement of the Capitol, and walked directly to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cleveland’s private office.</p>
|
||||
<p>I had studied the arrangement of the Capitol, and walked directly to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cleveland’s private office.</p>
|
||||
<p>I met a servant in the hall, and held up my card to him smilingly.</p>
|
||||
<p>I saw his hair rise on his head, and he ran like a deer to the door, and, lying down, rolled down the long flight of steps into the yard.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ah,” said I to myself, “he is one of our delinquent subscribers.”</p>
|
||||
<p>A little farther along I met the President’s private secretary, who had been writing a tariff letter and cleaning a duck gun for <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cleveland.</p>
|
||||
<p>A little farther along I met the President’s private secretary, who had been writing a tariff letter and cleaning a duck gun for <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cleveland.</p>
|
||||
<p>When I showed him the emblem of my paper he sprang out of a high window into a hothouse filled with rare flowers.</p>
|
||||
<p>This somewhat surprised me.</p>
|
||||
<p>I examined myself. My hat was on straight, and there was nothing at all alarming about my appearance.</p>
|
||||
<p>I went into the President’s private office.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was alone. He was conversing with Tom Ochiltree. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ochiltree saw my little sphere, and with a loud scream rushed out of the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was alone. He was conversing with Tom Ochiltree. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ochiltree saw my little sphere, and with a loud scream rushed out of the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>President Cleveland slowly turned his eyes upon me.</p>
|
||||
<p>He also saw what I had in my hand, and said in a husky voice:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Wait a moment, please.”</p>
|
||||
@ -44,7 +44,7 @@
|
||||
<p>He laid this on his desk and rose to his feet, raised one hand above him, and said in deep tones:</p>
|
||||
<p>“I die for Free Trade, my country, and—and—all that sort of thing.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I saw him jerk a string, and a camera snapped on another table, taking our picture as we stood.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t die in the House, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> President,” I said. “Go over into the Senate Chamber.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t die in the House, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> President,” I said. “Go over into the Senate Chamber.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Peace, murderer!” he said. “Let your bomb do its deadly work.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m no bum,” I said, with spirit. “I represent <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">The Rolling Stone</i>, of Austin, Texas, and this I hold in my hand does the same thing, but, it seems, unsuccessfully.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The President sank back in his chair greatly relieved.</p>
|
||||
@ -55,17 +55,17 @@
|
||||
<p>“Who is President of Texas now?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t exactly—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, excuse me. I forgot again. I thought I heard some talk of its having been made a Republic again.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cleveland,” I said, “you answer some of my questions.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cleveland,” I said, “you answer some of my questions.”</p>
|
||||
<p>A curious film came over the President’s eyes. He sat stiffly in his chair like an automaton.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Proceed,” he said.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What do you think of the political future of this country?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I will state that political exigencies demand emergentistical promptitude, and while the United States is indissoluble in conception and invisible in intent, treason and internecine disagreement have ruptured the consanguinity of patriotism, and—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“One moment, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> President,” I interrupted; “would you mind changing that cylinder? I could have gotten all that from the American Press Association if I had wanted plate matter. Do you wear flannels? What is your favorite poet, brand of catsup, bird, flower, and what are you going to do when you are out of a job?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Young man,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cleveland, sternly, “you are going a little too far. My private affairs do not concern the public.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“One moment, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> President,” I interrupted; “would you mind changing that cylinder? I could have gotten all that from the American Press Association if I had wanted plate matter. Do you wear flannels? What is your favorite poet, brand of catsup, bird, flower, and what are you going to do when you are out of a job?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Young man,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cleveland, sternly, “you are going a little too far. My private affairs do not concern the public.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I begged his pardon, and he recovered his good humor in a moment.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You Texans have a great representative in Senator Mills,” he said. “I think the greatest two speeches I ever heard were his address before the Senate advocating the removal of the tariff on salt and increasing it on chloride of sodium.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Tom Ochiltree is also from our State,” I said.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, no, he isn’t. You must be mistaken,” replied <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cleveland, “for he says he is. I really must go down to Texas some time, and see the State. I want to go up into the Panhandle and see if it is really shaped like it is on the map.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, no, he isn’t. You must be mistaken,” replied <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Cleveland, “for he says he is. I really must go down to Texas some time, and see the State. I want to go up into the Panhandle and see if it is really shaped like it is on the map.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, I must be going,” said I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“When you get back to Texas,” said the President, rising, “you must write to me. Your visit has awakened in me quite an interest in your State which I fear I have not given the attention it deserves. There are many historical and otherwise interesting places that you have revived in my recollection—the Alamo, where Davy Jones fell; Goliad, Sam Houston’s surrender to Montezuma, the petrified boom found near Austin, five-cent cotton and the Siamese Democratic platform born in Dallas. I should so much like to see the gals in Galveston, and go to the wake in Waco. I am glad I met you. Turn to the left as you enter the hall and keep straight on out.” I made a low bow to signify that the interview was at an end, and withdrew immediately. I had no difficulty in leaving the building as soon as I was outside.</p>
|
||||
<p>I hurried downtown in order to obtain refreshments at some place where viands had been placed upon the free list.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,12 +9,12 @@
|
||||
<article id="a-story-for-men" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Story for Men</h2>
|
||||
<p>This little story will be a disappointment to women who read it. They will all say: “I don’t see anything in that.” Probably there isn’t much.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine lives in Houston. You can meet any number of ladies every day out walking on Main Street that resemble her very much. She is not famous or extraordinary in any way. She has a nice family, is in moderate circumstances and lives in her own house. I would call her an average woman if that did not imply that some were below the average, which would be an ungallant insinuation. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine is a genuine woman. She always steps on a street car with her left foot first, wears her snowiest lace-trimmed sub-skirts on muddy days, and can cut a magazine, wind a clock, pick walnuts, open a trunk and clean out an inkstand, all with a hairpin. She can take twenty dollars worth of trimming and make over an old dress so you couldn’t tell it from a brand new fifteen dollar one. She is intelligent, reads the newspapers regularly and once cut a cooking recipe out of an old magazine that took the prize offered by a newspaper for the best original directions for making a green tomato pie. Her husband has such confidence in her household management that he trusts her with the entire housekeeping, sometimes leaving her in charge until a late hour of the night.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine is thoughtful, kindhearted and an excellent manager. She has two children, a little boy of 7 and a little girl of 4, of whom she is extravagantly fond. The Jessamines are going to keep a cook as soon as <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jessamine’s salary is raised, but just at present <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine is doing her own work.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine lives in Houston. You can meet any number of ladies every day out walking on Main Street that resemble her very much. She is not famous or extraordinary in any way. She has a nice family, is in moderate circumstances and lives in her own house. I would call her an average woman if that did not imply that some were below the average, which would be an ungallant insinuation. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine is a genuine woman. She always steps on a street car with her left foot first, wears her snowiest lace-trimmed sub-skirts on muddy days, and can cut a magazine, wind a clock, pick walnuts, open a trunk and clean out an inkstand, all with a hairpin. She can take twenty dollars worth of trimming and make over an old dress so you couldn’t tell it from a brand new fifteen dollar one. She is intelligent, reads the newspapers regularly and once cut a cooking recipe out of an old magazine that took the prize offered by a newspaper for the best original directions for making a green tomato pie. Her husband has such confidence in her household management that he trusts her with the entire housekeeping, sometimes leaving her in charge until a late hour of the night.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine is thoughtful, kindhearted and an excellent manager. She has two children, a little boy of 7 and a little girl of 4, of whom she is extravagantly fond. The Jessamines are going to keep a cook as soon as <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Jessamine’s salary is raised, but just at present <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine is doing her own work.</p>
|
||||
<p>While she is attending to her duties she gives the children a paper of needles, the scissors, some sample packages of aniline dyes and a box of safety matches to play with, and during the intervals of baking and sweeping the rooms she rushes in, kisses and cuddles them and then flies back to her work singing merrily.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>One afternoon last week <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine was lying on the bed reading a Sunday paper. The children were blowing soap bubbles with some old pipestems of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jessamine’s that he had discarded because they were full of nicotine.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine was reading an account of some cruel treatment of children that had been unearthed by the Gerry Society, and the tears came to her eyes as she thought of the heartless and criminally careless mothers of the land who are the cause of so much suffering to their innocent little ones.</p>
|
||||
<p>One afternoon last week <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine was lying on the bed reading a Sunday paper. The children were blowing soap bubbles with some old pipestems of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Jessamine’s that he had discarded because they were full of nicotine.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine was reading an account of some cruel treatment of children that had been unearthed by the Gerry Society, and the tears came to her eyes as she thought of the heartless and criminally careless mothers of the land who are the cause of so much suffering to their innocent little ones.</p>
|
||||
<p>Presently she fell asleep and dreamed this dream:</p>
|
||||
<p>She was all alone in a great room. She heard the doorbell snap and footsteps leaving and dying away in the hall outside. The room was a strange one, and she went about to examine it. She paused in front of a mirror and saw her reflection, and lo, she was a little child, in a white pinafore, with wide-open, wondering eyes and tangled dark curls.</p>
|
||||
<p>She heard the front door below stairs close and the gate open and shut. She began to play around the room with some dolls and pictures, and for a while was quite happy.</p>
|
||||
@ -23,9 +23,9 @@
|
||||
<p>Presently she saw a pretty red box on a table and curiosity for the moment overcame her fear. She opened the box and saw a lot of funny little sticks, with little round heads on them. She played with them on the floor, building little pigpens and fences and houses.</p>
|
||||
<p>In changing her position her heel fell upon the little sticks and the next moment a big blaze flared up, caught her dress, and with a loud scream she ran to the locked door, wrapped in burning, stinging flames, in an agony of pain and horror.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine awoke with a start and sprang wildly from the bed. The children were playing merrily on the floor, and she ran to them and caught them in her arms in thankfulness that the terrible dream was over. How she wished for someone to whom she could relate it and gain sympathy. Three blocks away lived <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Flutter, her best friend and confidante. Not for a long time had <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine had a dream that made such an impression upon her mind.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine awoke with a start and sprang wildly from the bed. The children were playing merrily on the floor, and she ran to them and caught them in her arms in thankfulness that the terrible dream was over. How she wished for someone to whom she could relate it and gain sympathy. Three blocks away lived <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Flutter, her best friend and confidante. Not for a long time had <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Jessamine had a dream that made such an impression upon her mind.</p>
|
||||
<p>She hastily put on her hat and cloak and said:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, be good children till I come back.” Then she went out, locked the door and hurried away to <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Flutter’s.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, be good children till I come back.” Then she went out, locked the door and hurried away to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Flutter’s.</p>
|
||||
<p>That is all.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
|
||||
<p>I never cared especially for feuds, believing them to be even more overrated products of our country than grapefruit, scrapple, or honeymoons. Nevertheless, if I may be allowed, I will tell you of an Indian Territory feud of which I was press-agent, camp-follower, and inaccessory during the fact.</p>
|
||||
<p>I was on a visit to Sam Durkee’s ranch, where I had a great time falling off unmanicured ponies and waving my bare hand at the lower jaws of wolves about two miles away. Sam was a hardened person of about twenty-five, with a reputation for going home in the dark with perfect equanimity, though often with reluctance.</p>
|
||||
<p>Over in the Creek Nation was a family bearing the name of Tatum. I was told that the Durkees and Tatums had been feuding for years. Several of each family had bitten the grass, and it was expected that more Nebuchadnezzars would follow. A younger generation of each family was growing up, and the grass was keeping pace with them. But I gathered that they had fought fairly; that they had not lain in cornfields and aimed at the division of their enemies’ suspenders in the back—partly, perhaps, because there were no cornfields, and nobody wore more than one suspender. Nor had any woman or child of either house ever been harmed. In those days—and you will find it so yet—their women were safe.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sam Durkee had a girl. (If it were an all-fiction magazine that I expect to sell this story to, I should say, “<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Durkee rejoiced in a fiancée.”) Her name was Ella Baynes. They appeared to be devoted to each other, and to have perfect confidence in each other, as all couples do who are and have or aren’t and haven’t. She was tolerably pretty, with a heavy mass of brown hair that helped her along. He introduced me to her, which seemed not to lessen her preference for him; so I reasoned that they were surely soul-mates.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sam Durkee had a girl. (If it were an all-fiction magazine that I expect to sell this story to, I should say, “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Durkee rejoiced in a fiancée.”) Her name was Ella Baynes. They appeared to be devoted to each other, and to have perfect confidence in each other, as all couples do who are and have or aren’t and haven’t. She was tolerably pretty, with a heavy mass of brown hair that helped her along. He introduced me to her, which seemed not to lessen her preference for him; so I reasoned that they were surely soul-mates.</p>
|
||||
<p>Miss Baynes lived in Kingfisher, twenty miles from the ranch. Sam lived on a gallop between the two places.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day there came to Kingfisher a courageous young man, rather small, with smooth face and regular features. He made many inquiries about the business of the town, and especially of the inhabitants cognominally. He said he was from Muscogee, and he looked it, with his yellow shoes and crocheted four-in-hand. I met him once when I rode in for the mail. He said his name was Beverly Travers, which seemed rather improbable.</p>
|
||||
<p>There were active times on the ranch, just then, and Sam was too busy to go to town often. As an incompetent and generally worthless guest, it devolved upon me to ride in for little things such as post cards, barrels of flour, baking-powder, smoking-tobacco, and—letters from Ella.</p>
|
||||
@ -57,7 +57,7 @@
|
||||
<p>For one time, at least, in the heart of the supernumerary there rose the killing instinct. For one moment he joined the force of combatants—orally.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What are you waiting for, Sam?” I said in a whisper. “Let him have it now!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Sam gave a melancholy sigh.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You don’t understand; but <em>he</em> does,” he said. “<em>He</em> knows. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tenderfoot, there’s a rule out here among white men in the Nation that you can’t shoot a man when he’s with a woman. I never knew it to be broke yet. You <em>can’t</em> do it. You’ve got to get him in a gang of men or by himself. That’s why. He knows it, too. We all know. So, that’s <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ben Tatum! One of the ‘pretty men’! I’ll cut him out of the herd before they leave the hotel, and regulate his account!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You don’t understand; but <em>he</em> does,” he said. “<em>He</em> knows. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Tenderfoot, there’s a rule out here among white men in the Nation that you can’t shoot a man when he’s with a woman. I never knew it to be broke yet. You <em>can’t</em> do it. You’ve got to get him in a gang of men or by himself. That’s why. He knows it, too. We all know. So, that’s <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ben Tatum! One of the ‘pretty men’! I’ll cut him out of the herd before they leave the hotel, and regulate his account!”</p>
|
||||
<p>After supper the flying pair disappeared quickly. Although Sam haunted lobby and stairway and halls half the night, in some mysterious way the fugitives eluded him; and in the morning the veiled lady in the brown dress with the accordion-plaited skirt and the dapper young man with the close-clipped hair, and the buckboard with the prancing nags, were gone.</p>
|
||||
<p>It is a monotonous story, that of the ride; so it shall be curtailed. Once again we overtook them on a road. We were about fifty yards behind. They turned in the buckboard and looked at us; then drove on without whipping up their horses. Their safety no longer lay in speed. Ben Tatum knew. He knew that the only rock of safety left to him was the code. There is no doubt that, had he been alone, the matter would have been settled quickly with Sam Durkee in the usual way; but he had something at his side that kept still the trigger-finger of both. It seemed likely that he was no coward.</p>
|
||||
<p>So, you may perceive that woman, on occasions, may postpone instead of precipitating conflict between man and man. But not willingly or consciously. She is oblivious of codes.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -19,15 +19,15 @@
|
||||
<p>“Pocket money,” says he; “that’s all. I am temporarily unfinanced. This little <span xml:lang="fr">coup de</span> rye straw is good for forty dollars in a town of this size. How do I work it? Why, I involve myself, as you perceive, in the loathsome apparel of the rural dub. Thus embalmed I am Jonas Stubblefield—a name impossible to improve upon. I repair noisily to the office of some loan company conveniently located in the third-floor, front. There I lay my hat and yarn gloves on the floor and ask to mortgage my farm for $2,000 to pay for my sister’s musical education in Europe. Loans like that always suit the loan companies. It’s ten to one that when the note falls due the foreclosure will be leading the semiquavers by a couple of lengths.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, sir, I reach in my pocket for the abstract of title; but I suddenly hear my team running away. I run to the window and emit the word—or exclamation, whichever it may be—viz, ‘Whoa!’ Then I rush downstairs and down the street, returning in a few minutes. ‘Dang them mules,’ I says; ‘they done run away and busted the doubletree and two traces. Now I got to hoof it home, for I never brought no money along. Reckon we’ll talk about that loan some other time, gen’lemen.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then I spreads out my tarpaulin, like the Israelites, and waits for the manna to drop.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Why, no, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Stubblefield,’ says the lobster-colored party in the specs and dotted pique vest; ‘oblige us by accepting this ten-dollar bill until tomorrow. Get your harness repaired and call in at ten. We’ll be pleased to accommodate you in the matter of this loan.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Why, no, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Stubblefield,’ says the lobster-colored party in the specs and dotted pique vest; ‘oblige us by accepting this ten-dollar bill until tomorrow. Get your harness repaired and call in at ten. We’ll be pleased to accommodate you in the matter of this loan.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s a slight thing,” says Buckingham Skinner, modest, “but, as I said, only for temporary loose change.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” says I, in respect for his mortification; “in case of an emergency. Of course, it’s small compared to organizing a trust or bridge whist, but even the Chicago University had to be started in a small way.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What’s your graft these days?” Buckingham Skinner asks me.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The legitimate,” says I. “I’m handling rhinestones and <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Oleum Sinapi’s Electric Headache Battery and the Swiss Warbler’s Bird Call, a small lot of the new queer ones and twos, and the Bonanza Budget, consisting of a rolled-gold wedding and engagement ring, six Egyptian lily bulbs, a combination pickle fork and nail-clipper, and fifty engraved visiting cards—no two names alike—all for the sum of 38 cents.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Two months ago,” says Buckingham Skinner, “I was doing well down in Texas with a patent instantaneous fire kindler, made of compressed wood ashes and benzine. I sold loads of ’em in towns where they like to burn niggers quick, without having to ask somebody for a light. And just when I was doing the best they strikes oil down there and puts me out of business. ‘Your machine’s too slow, now, pardner,’ they tells me. ‘We can have a coon in hell with this here petroleum before your old flint-and-tinder truck can get him warm enough to perfess religion.’ And so I gives up the kindler and drifts up here to <abbr class="eoc">K. C.</abbr> This little curtain-raiser you seen me doing, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pickens, with the simulated farm and the hypothetical teams, ain’t in my line at all, and I’m ashamed you found me working it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The legitimate,” says I. “I’m handling rhinestones and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Oleum Sinapi’s Electric Headache Battery and the Swiss Warbler’s Bird Call, a small lot of the new queer ones and twos, and the Bonanza Budget, consisting of a rolled-gold wedding and engagement ring, six Egyptian lily bulbs, a combination pickle fork and nail-clipper, and fifty engraved visiting cards—no two names alike—all for the sum of 38 cents.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Two months ago,” says Buckingham Skinner, “I was doing well down in Texas with a patent instantaneous fire kindler, made of compressed wood ashes and benzine. I sold loads of ’em in towns where they like to burn niggers quick, without having to ask somebody for a light. And just when I was doing the best they strikes oil down there and puts me out of business. ‘Your machine’s too slow, now, pardner,’ they tells me. ‘We can have a coon in hell with this here petroleum before your old flint-and-tinder truck can get him warm enough to perfess religion.’ And so I gives up the kindler and drifts up here to <abbr class="eoc">K. C.</abbr> This little curtain-raiser you seen me doing, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Pickens, with the simulated farm and the hypothetical teams, ain’t in my line at all, and I’m ashamed you found me working it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No man,” says I, kindly, “need to be ashamed of putting the skibunk on a loan corporation for even so small a sum as ten dollars, when he is financially abashed. Still, it wasn’t quite the proper thing. It’s too much like borrowing money without paying it back.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I liked Buckingham Skinner from the start, for as good a man as ever stood over the axles and breathed gasoline smoke. And pretty soon we gets thick, and I let him in on a scheme I’d had in mind for some time, and offers to go partners.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Anything,” says Buck, “that is not actually dishonest will find me willing and ready. Let us perforate into the inwardness of your proposition. I feel degraded when I am forced to wear property straw in my hair and assume a bucolic air for the small sum of ten dollars. Actually, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pickens, it makes me feel like the Ophelia of the Great Occidental All-Star One-Night Consolidated Theatrical Aggregation.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Anything,” says Buck, “that is not actually dishonest will find me willing and ready. Let us perforate into the inwardness of your proposition. I feel degraded when I am forced to wear property straw in my hair and assume a bucolic air for the small sum of ten dollars. Actually, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Pickens, it makes me feel like the Ophelia of the Great Occidental All-Star One-Night Consolidated Theatrical Aggregation.”</p>
|
||||
<p>This scheme of mine was one that suited my proclivities. By nature I am some sentimental, and have always felt gentle toward the mollifying elements of existence. I am disposed to be lenient with the arts and sciences; and I find time to instigate a cordiality for the more human works of nature, such as romance and the atmosphere and grass and poetry and the Seasons. I never skin a sucker without admiring the prismatic beauty of his scales. I never sell a little auriferous beauty to the man with the hoe without noticing the beautiful harmony there is between gold and green. And that’s why I liked this scheme; it was so full of outdoor air and landscapes and easy money.</p>
|
||||
<p>We had to have a young lady assistant to help us work this graft; and I asked Buck if he knew of one to fill the bill.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One,” says I, “that is cool and wise and strictly business from her pompadour to her Oxfords. No ex-toe-dancers or gum-chewers or crayon portrait canvassers for this.”</p>
|
||||
@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
|
||||
<p>One evening Buck and Miss Malloy drives up like blazes in a buggy to a farmer’s door. She is pale but affectionate, clinging to his arm—always clinging to his arm. Anyone can see that she is a peach and of the cling variety. They claim they are eloping for to be married on account of cruel parents. They ask where they can find a preacher. Farmer says, “B’gum there ain’t any preacher nigher than Reverend Abels, four miles over on Caney Creek.” Farmeress wipes her hand on her apron and rubbers through her specs.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then, lo and look ye! Up the road from the other way jogs Parleyvoo Pickens in a gig, dressed in black, white necktie, long face, sniffing his nose, emitting a spurious kind of noise resembling the long meter doxology.</p>
|
||||
<p>“B’jinks!” says farmer, “if thar ain’t a preacher now!”</p>
|
||||
<p>It transpires that I am <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Abijah Green, travelling over to Little Bethel schoolhouse for to preach next Sunday.</p>
|
||||
<p>It transpires that I am <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Rev.</abbr> Abijah Green, travelling over to Little Bethel schoolhouse for to preach next Sunday.</p>
|
||||
<p>The young folks will have it they must be married, for pa is pursuing them with the plow mules and the buckboard. So the Reverend Green, after hesitating, marries ’em in the farmer’s parlor. And farmer grins, and has in cider, and says “B’gum!” and farmeress sniffles a bit and pats the bride on the shoulder. And Parleyvoo Pickens, the wrong reverend, writes out a marriage certificate, and farmer and farmeress sign it as witnesses. And the parties of the first, second and third part gets in their vehicles and rides away. Oh, that was an idyllic graft! True love and the lowing kine and the sun shining on the red barns—it certainly had all other impostures I know about beat to a batter.</p>
|
||||
<p>I suppose I happened along in time to marry Buck and Miss Malloy at about twenty farmhouses. I hated to think how the romance was going to fade later on when all them marriage certificates turned up in banks where we’d discounted ’em, and the farmers had to pay them notes of hand they’d signed, running from $300 to $500.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the 15th day of May us three divided about $6,000. Miss Malloy nearly cried with joy. You don’t often see a tenderhearted girl or one that is bent on doing right.</p>
|
||||
@ -54,8 +54,8 @@
|
||||
<p>But old Badville-near-Coney is the ideal burg for a refined piece of piracy if you can pay the bunco duty. Imported grafts come pretty high. The customhouse officers that look after it carry clubs, and it’s hard to smuggle in even a bib-and-tucker swindle to work Brooklyn with unless you can pay the toll. But now, me and Buck, having capital, descends upon New York to try and trade the metropolitan backwoodsmen a few glass beads for real estate just as the Vans did a hundred or two years ago.</p>
|
||||
<p>At an East Side hotel we gets acquainted with Romulus <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">G.</abbr> Atterbury, a man with the finest head for financial operations I ever saw. It was all bald and glossy except for gray side whiskers. Seeing that head behind an office railing, and you’d deposit a million with it without a receipt. This Atterbury was well dressed, though he ate seldom; and the synopsis of his talk would make the conversation of a siren sound like a cab driver’s kick. He said he used to be a member of the Stock Exchange, but some of the big capitalists got jealous and formed a ring that forced him to sell his seat.</p>
|
||||
<p>Atterbury got to liking me and Buck and he begun to throw on the canvas for us some of the schemes that had caused his hair to evacuate. He had one scheme for starting a National bank on $45 that made the Mississippi Bubble look as solid as a glass marble. He talked this to us for three days, and when his throat was good and sore we told him about the roll we had. Atterbury borrowed a quarter from us and went out and got a box of throat lozenges and started all over again. This time he talked bigger things, and he got us to see ’em as he did. The scheme he laid out looked like a sure winner, and he talked me and Buck into putting our capital against his burnished dome of thought. It looked all right for a kid-gloved graft. It seemed to be just about an inch and a half outside of the reach of the police, and as moneymaking as a mint. It was just what me and Buck wanted—a regular business at a permanent stand, with an open air spieling with tonsilitis on the street corners every evening.</p>
|
||||
<p>So, in six weeks you see a handsome furnished set of offices down in the Wall Street neighborhood, with “The Golconda Gold Bond and Investment Company” in gilt letters on the door. And you see in his private room, with the door open, the secretary and treasurer, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Buckingham Skinner, costumed like the lilies of the conservatory, with his high silk hat close to his hand. Nobody yet ever saw Buck outside of an instantaneous reach for his hat.</p>
|
||||
<p>And you might perceive the president and general manager, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">R. G.</abbr> Atterbury, with his priceless polished poll, busy in the main office room dictating letters to a shorthand countess, who has got pomp and a pompadour that is no less than a guarantee to investors.</p>
|
||||
<p>So, in six weeks you see a handsome furnished set of offices down in the Wall Street neighborhood, with “The Golconda Gold Bond and Investment Company” in gilt letters on the door. And you see in his private room, with the door open, the secretary and treasurer, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Buckingham Skinner, costumed like the lilies of the conservatory, with his high silk hat close to his hand. Nobody yet ever saw Buck outside of an instantaneous reach for his hat.</p>
|
||||
<p>And you might perceive the president and general manager, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">R. G.</abbr> Atterbury, with his priceless polished poll, busy in the main office room dictating letters to a shorthand countess, who has got pomp and a pompadour that is no less than a guarantee to investors.</p>
|
||||
<p>There is a bookkeeper and an assistant, and a general atmosphere of varnish and culpability.</p>
|
||||
<p>At another desk the eye is relieved by the sight of an ordinary man, attired with unscrupulous plainness, sitting with his feet up, eating apples, with his obnoxious hat on the back of his head. That man is no other than Colonel Tecumseh (once “Parleyvoo”) Pickens, the vice-president of the company.</p>
|
||||
<p>“No recherché rags for me,” I says to Atterbury, when we was organizing the stage properties of the robbery. “I’m a plain man,” says I, “and I do not use pajamas, French, or military hairbrushes. Cast me for the role of the rhinestone-in-the-rough or I don’t go on exhibition. If you can use me in my natural, though displeasing form, do so.”</p>
|
||||
@ -110,7 +110,7 @@
|
||||
<p>When they was all paid off and gone, Buck calls the newspaper reporter and shoves the rest of the money over to him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You begun this,” says Buck; “now finish it. Over there are the books, showing every share and bond issued. Here’s the money to cover, except what we’ve spent to live on. You’ll have to act as receiver. I guess you’ll do the square thing on account of your paper. This is the best way we know how to settle it. Me and our substantial but apple-weary vice-president are going to follow the example of our revered president, and skip. Now, have you got enough news for today, or do you want to interview us on etiquette and the best way to make over an old taffeta skirt?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“News!” says the newspaper man, taking his pipe out; “do you think I could use this? I don’t want to lose my job. Suppose I go around to the office and tell ’em this happened. What’ll the managing editor say? He’ll just hand me a pass to Bellevue and tell me to come back when I get cured. I might turn in a story about a sea serpent wiggling up Broadway, but I haven’t got the nerve to try ’em with a pipe like this. A get-rich-quick scheme—excuse me—gang giving back the boodle! Oh, no. I’m not on the comic supplement.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You can’t understand it, of course,” says Buck, with his hand on the door knob. “Me and Pick ain’t Wall Streeters like you know ’em. We never allowed to swindle sick old women and working girls and take nickels off of kids. In the lines of graft we’ve worked we took money from the people the Lord made to be buncoed—sports and rounders and smart Alecks and street crowds, that always have a few dollars to throw away, and farmers that wouldn’t ever be happy if the grafters didn’t come around and play with ’em when they sold their crops. We never cared to fish for the kind of suckers that bite here. No, sir. We got too much respect for the profession and for ourselves. Goodbye to you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Receiver.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You can’t understand it, of course,” says Buck, with his hand on the door knob. “Me and Pick ain’t Wall Streeters like you know ’em. We never allowed to swindle sick old women and working girls and take nickels off of kids. In the lines of graft we’ve worked we took money from the people the Lord made to be buncoed—sports and rounders and smart Alecks and street crowds, that always have a few dollars to throw away, and farmers that wouldn’t ever be happy if the grafters didn’t come around and play with ’em when they sold their crops. We never cared to fish for the kind of suckers that bite here. No, sir. We got too much respect for the profession and for ourselves. Goodbye to you, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Receiver.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Here!” says the journalist reporter; “wait a minute. There’s a broker I know on the next floor. Wait till I put this truck in his safe. I want you fellows to take a drink on me before you go.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“On you?” says Buck, winking solemn. “Don’t you go and try to make ’em believe at the office you said that. Thanks. We can’t spare the time, I reckon. So long.”</p>
|
||||
<p>And me and Buck slides out the door; and that’s the way the Golconda Company went into involuntary liquefaction.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="a-universal-favorite" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Universal Favorite</h2>
|
||||
<p>The most popular and best loved young lady in the United States is Miss Annie Williams of Philadelphia. Her picture is possessed by more men, and is more eagerly sought after than that of Lillian Russell, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Langtry, or any other famous beauty. There is more demand for her pictures than for the counterfeit presentments of all the famous men and women in the world combined. And yet she is a modest, charming, and rather retiring young lady, with a face less beautiful than of a clear and classic outline.</p>
|
||||
<p>The most popular and best loved young lady in the United States is Miss Annie Williams of Philadelphia. Her picture is possessed by more men, and is more eagerly sought after than that of Lillian Russell, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Langtry, or any other famous beauty. There is more demand for her pictures than for the counterfeit presentments of all the famous men and women in the world combined. And yet she is a modest, charming, and rather retiring young lady, with a face less beautiful than of a clear and classic outline.</p>
|
||||
<p>Miss Williams is soon to be married, but it is expected that the struggle for her pictures will go on as usual.</p>
|
||||
<p>She is the lady the profile of whose face served as the model for the head of Liberty on our silver dollar.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,8 +9,8 @@
|
||||
<article id="a-villainous-trick" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">A Villainous Trick</h2>
|
||||
<p>When it becomes necessary for an actor to write a letter during the performance of a play, it is a custom to read the words aloud as he writes them. It is necessary to do this in order that the audience may be apprised of its contents, otherwise the clearness of the plot might be obscured. The writing of a letter upon the stage, therefore, generally has an important bearing upon the situation being presented, and of course the writer is forced to read aloud what he writes for the benefit of the audience. During the production of “Monbars” in Houston some days ago, the gentleman who assumed the character of the heavy villain took advantage of a situation of this description in a most cowardly manner.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the last act, Mantell, as Monbars, writes a letter of vital importance, and, as customary, reads the lines aloud as he writes them. The villain hides behind the curtains of a couch and listens in fiendish glee to the contents of the letter as imparted by <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Mantell in strict confidence to the audience. He then uses the information obtained in this underhanded manner to further his own devilish designs.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Mantell ought not to allow this. A man who is a member of his own company, and who, no doubt is drawing a good salary, should be above taking a mean advantage of a mere stage technicality.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the last act, Mantell, as Monbars, writes a letter of vital importance, and, as customary, reads the lines aloud as he writes them. The villain hides behind the curtains of a couch and listens in fiendish glee to the contents of the letter as imparted by <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Mantell in strict confidence to the audience. He then uses the information obtained in this underhanded manner to further his own devilish designs.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Mantell ought not to allow this. A man who is a member of his own company, and who, no doubt is drawing a good salary, should be above taking a mean advantage of a mere stage technicality.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,8 +8,8 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="after-supper" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">After Supper</h2>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sharp: “My darling, it seems to me that every year that passes over your head but brings out some new charm, some hidden beauty, some added grace. There is a look in your eyes tonight that is as charming and girllike as when I first met you. What a blessing it is when two hearts can grow but fonder as time flies. You are scarcely less beautiful now than when—”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp: “I had forgotten it was lodge night, Robert. Don’t be out much after twelve, if you can help it.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sharp: “My darling, it seems to me that every year that passes over your head but brings out some new charm, some hidden beauty, some added grace. There is a look in your eyes tonight that is as charming and girllike as when I first met you. What a blessing it is when two hearts can grow but fonder as time flies. You are scarcely less beautiful now than when—”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Sharp: “I had forgotten it was lodge night, Robert. Don’t be out much after twelve, if you can help it.”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -28,7 +28,7 @@
|
||||
<p>One mere boy in his company was wont to enter a fray with a leg perched flippantly about the horn of his saddle, a cigarette hanging from his lips, which emitted smoke and original slogans of clever invention. Buckley would have given a year’s pay to attain that devil-lay-care method. Once the debonair youth said to him: “Buck, you go into a scrap like it was a funeral. Not,” he added, with a complimentary wave of his tin cup, “but what it generally is.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Buckley’s conscience was of the New England order with Western adjustments, and he continued to get his rebellious body into as many difficulties as possible; wherefore, on that sultry afternoon he chose to drive his own protesting limbs to investigation of that sudden alarm that had startled the peace and dignity of the State.</p>
|
||||
<p>Two squares down the street stood the Top Notch Saloon. Here Buckley came upon signs of recent upheaval. A few curious spectators pressed about its front entrance, grinding beneath their heels the fragments of a plate-glass window. Inside, Buckley found Bud Dawson utterly ignoring a bullet wound in his shoulder, while he feelingly wept at having to explain why he failed to drop the “blamed masquerooter,” who shot him. At the entrance of the ranger Bud turned appealingly to him for confirmation of the devastation he might have dealt.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You know, Buck, I’d ’a’ plum got him, first rattle, if I’d thought a minute. Come in a-masque-rootin’, playin’ female till he got the drop, and turned loose. I never reached for a gun, thinkin’ it was sure Chihuahua Betty, or <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Atwater, or anyhow one of the Mayfield girls comin’ a-gunnin’, which they might, liable as not. I never thought of that blamed Garcia until—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You know, Buck, I’d ’a’ plum got him, first rattle, if I’d thought a minute. Come in a-masque-rootin’, playin’ female till he got the drop, and turned loose. I never reached for a gun, thinkin’ it was sure Chihuahua Betty, or <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Atwater, or anyhow one of the Mayfield girls comin’ a-gunnin’, which they might, liable as not. I never thought of that blamed Garcia until—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Garcia!” snapped Buckley. “How did he get over here?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Bud’s bartender took the ranger by the arm and led him to the side door. There stood a patient grey burro cropping the grass along the gutter, with a load of kindling wood tied across its back. On the ground lay a black shawl and a voluminous brown dress.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Masquerootin’ in them things,” called Bud, still resisting attempted ministrations to his wounds. “Thought he was a lady till he gave a yell and winged me.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -17,14 +17,14 @@
|
||||
<p>The rest of her was yellow. Her hair, in some bygone age, had been dipped in the fountain of folly presided over by the merry nymph Hydrogen; but now, except at the roots, it had returned to its natural grim and grizzled white.</p>
|
||||
<p>Her eyes and teeth and finger nails were yellow. Her chops hung low and shook when she moved. The look on her face was exactly that smileless look of fatal melancholy that you may have seen on the countenance of a hound left sitting on the doorstep of a deserted cabin.</p>
|
||||
<p>I inquired for Paley. After a long look of cold suspicion the landlady spoke, and her voice matched the dingy roughness of her flannel sacque.</p>
|
||||
<p>Paley? Was I sure that was the name? And wasn’t it, likely, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sanderson I meant, in the third floor rear? No; it was Paley I wanted. Again that frozen, shrewd, steady study of my soul from her pale-yellow, unwinking eyes, trying to penetrate my mask of deception and rout out my true motives from my lying lips. There was a <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tompkins in the front hall bedroom two flights up. Perhaps it was he I was seeking. He worked of nights; he never came in till seven in the morning. Or if it was really <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tucker (thinly disguised as Paley) that I was hunting I would have to call between five and—</p>
|
||||
<p>Paley? Was I sure that was the name? And wasn’t it, likely, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sanderson I meant, in the third floor rear? No; it was Paley I wanted. Again that frozen, shrewd, steady study of my soul from her pale-yellow, unwinking eyes, trying to penetrate my mask of deception and rout out my true motives from my lying lips. There was a <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Tompkins in the front hall bedroom two flights up. Perhaps it was he I was seeking. He worked of nights; he never came in till seven in the morning. Or if it was really <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Tucker (thinly disguised as Paley) that I was hunting I would have to call between five and—</p>
|
||||
<p>But no; I held firmly to Paley. There was no such name among her lodgers. Click! the door closed swiftly in my face; and I heard through the panels the clanking of chains and bolts.</p>
|
||||
<p>I went down the steps and stopped to consider. The number of this house was 43. I was sure Paley had said 43—or perhaps it was 45 or 47—I decided to try 47, the second house farther along.</p>
|
||||
<p>I rang the bell. The door opened; and there stood the same woman. I wasn’t confronted by just a resemblance—it was the <em>same</em> woman holding together the same old sacque at her throat and looking at me with the same yellow eyes as if she had never seen me before on earth. I saw on the knuckle of her second finger the same red-and-black spot made, probably, by a recent burn against a hot stove.</p>
|
||||
<p>I stood speechless and gaping while one with moderate haste might have told fifty. I couldn’t have spoken Paley’s name even if I had remembered it. I did the only thing that a brave man who believes there are mysterious forces in nature that we do not yet fully comprehend could have done in the circumstances. I backed down the steps to the sidewalk and then hurried away frontward, fully understanding how incidents like that must bother the psychical research people and the census takers.</p>
|
||||
<p>Of course I heard an explanation of it afterward, as we always do about inexplicable things.</p>
|
||||
<p>The landlady was <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kannon; and she leased three adjoining houses, which she made into one by cutting arched doorways through the walls. She sat in the middle house and answered the three bells.</p>
|
||||
<p>I wonder why I have maundered so slowly through the prologue. I have it! it was simply to say to you, in the form of introduction rife through the Middle West: “Shake hands with <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kannon.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The landlady was <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kannon; and she leased three adjoining houses, which she made into one by cutting arched doorways through the walls. She sat in the middle house and answered the three bells.</p>
|
||||
<p>I wonder why I have maundered so slowly through the prologue. I have it! it was simply to say to you, in the form of introduction rife through the Middle West: “Shake hands with <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kannon.”</p>
|
||||
<p>For, it was in her triple house that the Christmas story happened; and it was there where I picked up the incontrovertible facts from the gossip of many roomers and met Stickney—and saw the necktie.</p>
|
||||
<p>Christmas came that year on Thursday, and snow came with it.</p>
|
||||
<p>Stickney (Harry Clarence Fowler Stickney to whomsoever his full baptismal cognominal burdens may be of interest) reached his address at six-thirty Wednesday afternoon. “Address” is New Yorkese for “home.” Stickney roomed at 45 West ’Teenth Street, third floor rear hall room. He was twenty years and four months old, and he worked in a cameras-of-all-kinds, photographic supplies and films-developed store. I don’t know what kind of work he did in the store; but you must have seen him. He is the young man who always comes behind the counter to wait on you and lets you talk for five minutes, telling him what you want. When you are done, he calls the proprietor at the top of his voice to wait on you, and walks away whistling between his teeth.</p>
|
||||
@ -33,8 +33,8 @@
|
||||
<p>But, I’ll tell you to what kind of a mortal Christmas seems to be only the day before the twenty-sixth day of December. It’s the chap in the big city earning sixteen dollars a week, with no friends and few acquaintances, who finds himself with only fifty cents in his pocket on Christmas eve. He can’t accept charity; he can’t borrow; he knows no one who would invite him to dinner. I have a fancy that when the shepherds left their flocks to follow the star of Bethlehem there was a bandy-legged young fellow among them who was just learning the sheep business. So they said to him, “Bobby, we’re going to investigate this star route and see what’s in it. If it should turn out to be the first Christmas day we don’t want to miss it. And, as you are not a wise man, and as you couldn’t possibly purchase a present to take along, suppose you stay behind and mind the sheep.”</p>
|
||||
<p>So as we may say, Harry Stickney was a direct descendant of the shepherd who was left behind to take care of the flocks.</p>
|
||||
<p>Getting back to facts, Stickney rang the doorbell of 45. He had a habit of forgetting his latchkey.</p>
|
||||
<p>Instantly the door opened and there stood <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kannon, clutching her sacque together at the throat and gorgonizing him with her opaque, yellow eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>(To give you good measure, here is a story within a story. Once a roomer in 47 who had the Scotch habit—not kilts, but a habit of drinking Scotch—began to figure to himself what might happen if two persons should ring the doorbells of 43 and 47 at the same time. Visions of two halves of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kannon appearing respectively and simultaneously at the two entrances, each clutching at a side of an open, flapping sacque that could never meet, overpowered him. Bellevue got him.)</p>
|
||||
<p>Instantly the door opened and there stood <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kannon, clutching her sacque together at the throat and gorgonizing him with her opaque, yellow eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>(To give you good measure, here is a story within a story. Once a roomer in 47 who had the Scotch habit—not kilts, but a habit of drinking Scotch—began to figure to himself what might happen if two persons should ring the doorbells of 43 and 47 at the same time. Visions of two halves of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Kannon appearing respectively and simultaneously at the two entrances, each clutching at a side of an open, flapping sacque that could never meet, overpowered him. Bellevue got him.)</p>
|
||||
<p>“Evening,” said Stickney cheerlessly, as he distributed little piles of muddy slush along the hall matting. “Think we’ll have snow?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You left your key,” said—</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Dulcie forgot everything else for a moment except that she was beautiful, and that life was about to lift a corner of its mysterious veil for her to observe its wonders. No gentleman had ever asked her out before. Now she was going for a brief moment into the glitter and exalted show.</p>
|
||||
<p>The girls said that Piggy was a “spender.” There would be a grand dinner, and music, and splendidly dressed ladies to look at, and things to eat that strangely twisted the girls’ jaws when they tried to tell about them. No doubt she would be asked out again. There was a blue pongee suit in a window that she knew—by saving twenty cents a week instead of ten, in—let’s see—Oh, it would run into years! But there was a secondhand store in Seventh Avenue where—</p>
|
||||
<p>Somebody knocked at the door. Dulcie opened it. The landlady stood there with a spurious smile, sniffing for cooking by stolen gas.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A gentleman’s downstairs to see you,” she said. “Name is <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wiggins.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“A gentleman’s downstairs to see you,” she said. “Name is <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wiggins.”</p>
|
||||
<p>By such epithet was Piggy known to unfortunate ones who had to take him seriously.</p>
|
||||
<p>Dulcie turned to the dresser to get her handkerchief; and then she stopped still, and bit her underlip hard. While looking in her mirror she had seen fairyland and herself, a princess, just awakening from a long slumber. She had forgotten one that was watching her with sad, beautiful, stern eyes—the only one there was to approve or condemn what she did. Straight and slender and tall, with a look of sorrowful reproach on his handsome, melancholy face, General Kitchener fixed his wonderful eyes on her out of his gilt photograph frame on the dresser.</p>
|
||||
<p>Dulcie turned like an automatic doll to the landlady.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="an-unsuccessful-experiment" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">An Unsuccessful Experiment</h2>
|
||||
<p>There is an old colored preacher in Texas who is a great admirer of the <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Sam Jones.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-2" id="noteref-2" epub:type="noteref">2</a> Last Sunday he determined to drop his old style of exhorting the brethren, and pitch hot shot plump into the middle of their camp, after the manner so successfully followed by the famous Georgia evangelist. After the opening hymn had been sung, and the congregation led in prayer by a worthy deacon, the old preacher laid his spectacles on his Bible, and let out straight from the shoulder.</p>
|
||||
<p>There is an old colored preacher in Texas who is a great admirer of the <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Rev.</abbr> Sam Jones.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-2" id="noteref-2" epub:type="noteref">2</a> Last Sunday he determined to drop his old style of exhorting the brethren, and pitch hot shot plump into the middle of their camp, after the manner so successfully followed by the famous Georgia evangelist. After the opening hymn had been sung, and the congregation led in prayer by a worthy deacon, the old preacher laid his spectacles on his Bible, and let out straight from the shoulder.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My dearly belubbed,” he said, “I has been preachin’ to you fo’ mo’ dan five years, and de grace ob God hab failed to percolate in yo’ obstreperous hearts. I hab nebber seen a more or’nery lot dan dis belubbed congregation. Now dar is Sam Wadkins in de fo’th bench on de left. Kin anybody show me a no’counter, trashier, lowdowner buck nigger in dis community? Whar does the chicken feathers come from what I seen in his back yard dis mawnin’? Kin Brudder Wadkins rise and explain?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Brother Wadkins sat in his pew with his eyes rolling and breathing hard, but was taken by surprise and did not respond.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And dar is Elder Hoskins, on de right. Everybody knows he’s er lying, shiftless, beer-drinking bum. His wife supports him takin’ in washin’. What good is de blood of de Lamb done for him? Wonder ef he thinks dat he kin keep a lofin’ ’round in de kitchen ob de New Jerusalem?”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -30,32 +30,32 @@
|
||||
<p>“I’ve got $1,200,” says he. “We’ll pool and do a big piece of business. There’s so many ways we can make a million that I don’t know how to begin.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The next morning Silver meets me at the hotel and he is all sonorous and stirred with a kind of silent joy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We’re to meet <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">J. P.</abbr> Morgan this afternoon,” says he. “A man I know in the hotel wants to introduce us. He’s a friend of his. He says he likes to meet people from the West.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That sounds nice and plausible,” says I. “I’d like to know <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That sounds nice and plausible,” says I. “I’d like to know <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It won’t hurt us a bit,” says Silver, “to get acquainted with a few finance kings. I kind of like the social way New York has with strangers.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The man Silver knew was named Klein. At three o’clock Klein brought his Wall Street friend to see us in Silver’s room. “<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan” looked some like his pictures, and he had a Turkish towel wrapped around his left foot, and he walked with a cane.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Silver and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pescud,” says Klein. “It sounds superfluous,” says he, “to mention the name of the greatest financial—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Cut it out, Klein,” says <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan. “I’m glad to know you gents; I take great interest in the West. Klein tells me you’re from Little Rock. I think I’ve a railroad or two out there somewhere. If either of you guys would like to deal a hand or two of stud poker I—”</p>
|
||||
<p>The man Silver knew was named Klein. At three o’clock Klein brought his Wall Street friend to see us in Silver’s room. “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan” looked some like his pictures, and he had a Turkish towel wrapped around his left foot, and he walked with a cane.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Silver and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Pescud,” says Klein. “It sounds superfluous,” says he, “to mention the name of the greatest financial—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Cut it out, Klein,” says <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan. “I’m glad to know you gents; I take great interest in the West. Klein tells me you’re from Little Rock. I think I’ve a railroad or two out there somewhere. If either of you guys would like to deal a hand or two of stud poker I—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, Pierpont,” cuts in Klein, “you forget!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Excuse me, gents!” says Morgan; “since I’ve had the gout so bad I sometimes play a social game of cards at my house. Neither of you never knew One-eyed Peters, did you, while you was around Little Rock? He lived in Seattle, New Mexico.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Before we could answer, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan hammers on the floor with his cane and begins to walk up and down, swearing in a loud tone of voice.</p>
|
||||
<p>Before we could answer, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan hammers on the floor with his cane and begins to walk up and down, swearing in a loud tone of voice.</p>
|
||||
<p>“They have been pounding your stocks today on the Street, Pierpont?” asks Klein, smiling.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Stocks! No!” roars <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan. “It’s that picture I sent an agent to Europe to buy. I just thought about it. He cabled me today that it ain’t to be found in all Italy. I’d pay $50,000 tomorrow for that picture—yes, $75,000. I give the agent à la carte in purchasing it. I cannot understand why the art galleries will allow a De Vinchy to—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan,” says Klein; “I thought you owned all of the De Vinchy paintings.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What is the picture like, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan?” asks Silver. “It must be as big as the side of the Flatiron Building.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m afraid your art education is on the bum, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Silver,” says Morgan. “The picture is 27 inches by 42; and it is called ‘Love’s Idle Hour.’ It represents a number of cloak models doing the two-step on the bank of a purple river. The cablegram said it might have been brought to this country. My collection will never be complete without that picture. Well, so long, gents; us financiers must keep early hours.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan and Klein went away together in a cab. Me and Silver talked about how simple and unsuspecting great people was; and Silver said what a shame it would be to try to rob a man like <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan; and I said I thought it would be rather imprudent, myself. Klein proposes a stroll after dinner; and me and him and Silver walks down toward Seventh Avenue to see the sights. Klein sees a pair of cuff links that instigate his admiration in a pawnshop window, and we all go in while he buys ’em.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Stocks! No!” roars <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan. “It’s that picture I sent an agent to Europe to buy. I just thought about it. He cabled me today that it ain’t to be found in all Italy. I’d pay $50,000 tomorrow for that picture—yes, $75,000. I give the agent à la carte in purchasing it. I cannot understand why the art galleries will allow a De Vinchy to—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan,” says Klein; “I thought you owned all of the De Vinchy paintings.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What is the picture like, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan?” asks Silver. “It must be as big as the side of the Flatiron Building.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m afraid your art education is on the bum, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Silver,” says Morgan. “The picture is 27 inches by 42; and it is called ‘Love’s Idle Hour.’ It represents a number of cloak models doing the two-step on the bank of a purple river. The cablegram said it might have been brought to this country. My collection will never be complete without that picture. Well, so long, gents; us financiers must keep early hours.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan and Klein went away together in a cab. Me and Silver talked about how simple and unsuspecting great people was; and Silver said what a shame it would be to try to rob a man like <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan; and I said I thought it would be rather imprudent, myself. Klein proposes a stroll after dinner; and me and him and Silver walks down toward Seventh Avenue to see the sights. Klein sees a pair of cuff links that instigate his admiration in a pawnshop window, and we all go in while he buys ’em.</p>
|
||||
<p>After we got back to the hotel and Klein had gone, Silver jumps at me and waves his hands.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did you see it?” says he. “Did you see it, Billy?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What?” I asks.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, that picture that Morgan wants. It’s hanging in that pawnshop, behind the desk. I didn’t say anything because Klein was there. It’s the article sure as you live. The girls are as natural as paint can make them, all measuring 36 and 25 and 42 skirts, if they had any skirts, and they’re doing a buck-and-wing on the bank of a river with the blues. What did <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan say he’d give for it? Oh, don’t make me tell you. They can’t know what it is in that pawnshop.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, that picture that Morgan wants. It’s hanging in that pawnshop, behind the desk. I didn’t say anything because Klein was there. It’s the article sure as you live. The girls are as natural as paint can make them, all measuring 36 and 25 and 42 skirts, if they had any skirts, and they’re doing a buck-and-wing on the bank of a river with the blues. What did <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan say he’d give for it? Oh, don’t make me tell you. They can’t know what it is in that pawnshop.”</p>
|
||||
<p>When the pawnshop opened the next morning me and Silver was standing there as anxious as if we wanted to soak our Sunday suit to buy a drink. We sauntered inside, and began to look at watch-chains.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s a violent specimen of a chromo you’ve got up there,” remarked Silver, casual, to the pawnbroker. “But I kind of enthuse over the girl with the shoulder-blades and red bunting. Would an offer of $2.25 for it cause you to knock over any fragile articles of your stock in hurrying it off the nail?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The pawnbroker smiles and goes on showing us plate watch-chains.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That picture,” says he, “was pledged a year ago by an Italian gentleman. I loaned him $500 on it. It is called ‘Love’s Idle Hour,’ and it is by Leonardo de Vinchy. Two days ago the legal time expired, and it became an unredeemed pledge. Here is a style of chain that is worn a great deal now.”</p>
|
||||
<p>At the end of half an hour me and Silver paid the pawnbroker $2,000 and walked out with the picture. Silver got into a cab with it and started for Morgan’s office. I goes to the hotel and waits for him. In two hours Silver comes back.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did you see <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan?” I asks. “How much did he pay you for it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did you see <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan?” I asks. “How much did he pay you for it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Silver sits down and fools with a tassel on the table cover.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I never exactly saw <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan,” he says, “because <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan’s been in Europe for a month. But what’s worrying me, Billy, is this: The department stores have all got that same picture on sale, framed, for $3.48. And they charge $3.50 for the frame alone—that’s what I can’t understand.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I never exactly saw <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan,” he says, “because <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan’s been in Europe for a month. But what’s worrying me, Billy, is this: The department stores have all got that same picture on sale, framed, for $3.48. And they charge $3.50 for the frame alone—that’s what I can’t understand.”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I told my customer that I had invented a hair tonic that if its use were persisted in would certainly cause the hair to grow on the smoothest head. I sat down and wrote him out a formula and told him to have it prepared at a drug store and not to give away the information, as I intended after a while to have it patented and sell it on a large scale. The recipe contained a lot of harmless stuff, some salts of tartar, oil of almonds, bay rum, rose water, tincture of myrrh and some other ingredients. I wrote them down at random just as they came into my head, and half an hour afterwards I couldn’t have told what it was composed of myself. The man took it, paid me a dollar for the formula and went off to get it filled at a drug store.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He came back twice that week to get shaved, and he said he was using it faithfully. Then he didn’t come any more for about two weeks. He dropped in one afternoon and hung his hat up, and it nearly knocked me down when I saw that the finest kind of a suit of hair had started on his head. It was growing splendidly, and only two weeks before his head had been as bald as a door knob.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He said he was awfully pleased with my tonic, and well he might be. While I was shaving him I tried to think what the ingredients were that I had written down for him to use, but I couldn’t remember the quantities or half the things I had used. I knew that I had accidentally struck upon a tonic that would make the hair grow, and I knew furthermore that that formula was worth a million dollars to any man if it would do the work. Making hair grow on bald heads, if it could be done, would be better than any gold mine ever worked. I made up my mind to have that formula. When he was about to start away I said carelessly:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘By the way, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Plunket, I have mislaid my memorandum book that has the formula of my tonic in it and I want to have a bottle or two prepared this morning. If you have the one I gave you I’d like to make a copy of it while you are here.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘By the way, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Plunket, I have mislaid my memorandum book that has the formula of my tonic in it and I want to have a bottle or two prepared this morning. If you have the one I gave you I’d like to make a copy of it while you are here.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I must have looked too anxious, for he looked at me for a few minutes and then broke out into a laugh.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘By Jiminy,’ he said, ‘I don’t believe you’ve got a copy of it anywheres. I believe you just happend to hit on the right thing and you don’t remember what it was. I ain’t half as green as I look. That hair grower is worth a fortune, and a big one, too. I think I’ll just keep my recipe and get somebody to put the stuff up and sell it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“He started out, and I called him into the back room and talked to him half an hour.</p>
|
||||
@ -48,23 +48,23 @@
|
||||
<p>The barber began to look gloomy and ran his fingers inside the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Post</i> Man’s shirt collar, tearing out the button hole, and the collar button flew out the door across the sidewalk into the gutter.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I went to work next day,” said the barber, “and filed application at Washington for a patent on my tonic and arranged with a big drug firm in Houston to put it on the market for me. I had a million dollars in sight. I fixed up a room where I mixed the tonic—for I wouldn’t let the druggists or anybody else know what was in it—and then the druggists bottled and labeled it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I quit working in the shop and put all my time into my tonic.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Plunket came into the shop once or twice within the next two weeks and his hair was still growing finely. Pretty soon I had about $200 worth of the tonic ready for the market, and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Plunket was to come in town on Saturday and give me his testimonial to print on advertising dodgers and circulars with which I was going to flood the country.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was waiting in the room where I mixed my tonic about 11 o’clock Saturday when the door opened and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Plunket came in. He was very much excited and very angry.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Plunket came into the shop once or twice within the next two weeks and his hair was still growing finely. Pretty soon I had about $200 worth of the tonic ready for the market, and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Plunket was to come in town on Saturday and give me his testimonial to print on advertising dodgers and circulars with which I was going to flood the country.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was waiting in the room where I mixed my tonic about 11 o’clock Saturday when the door opened and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Plunket came in. He was very much excited and very angry.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Look here,’ he cried, ‘what’s the matter with your infernal stuff?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“He pulled off his hat, and his head was as shiny and bare as a china egg.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘It all came out,’ he said roughly. ‘It was growing all right until yesterday morning, when it commenced to fall out, and this morning there wasn’t a hair left.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I examined his head and there wasn’t the ghost of a hair to be found anywhere.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘What’s the good of your stuff,’ he asked angrily, ‘if it makes your hair grow and then all fall out again?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘For heaven’s sake, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Plunket,’ I said, ‘don’t say anything about it or you’ll ruin me. I’ve got every cent I’ve got in the world invested in this hair tonic, and I’ve got to get my money back. It made your hair grow, give me the testimonial and let me sell what I’ve got put up, anyway. You are $250 ahead on it and you ought to help me out of it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘For heaven’s sake, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Plunket,’ I said, ‘don’t say anything about it or you’ll ruin me. I’ve got every cent I’ve got in the world invested in this hair tonic, and I’ve got to get my money back. It made your hair grow, give me the testimonial and let me sell what I’ve got put up, anyway. You are $250 ahead on it and you ought to help me out of it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“He was very mad and cut up quite roughly and said he had been swindled and would expose the tonic as a fraud and a lot of things like that. Finally he agreed that if I would pay him $100 more he would give me the testimonial to the effect that the tonic had made his hair grow and say nothing about its having fallen out again. If I could sell what I had put up at $1.00 per bottle I would come out about even.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I went out and borrowed the money and paid it to him and he signed the testimonial and left.”</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>“Did you sell your tonic out?” asked the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Post</i> Man, trying to speak in a tone calculated not to give offense.</p>
|
||||
<p>The barber gave him a look of derisive contempt and then said in a tone of the utmost sarcasm:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, yes, I sold it out. I sold exactly five bottles, and the purchasers, after using the mixture faithfully for a month, came back and demanded their money. Not one of them that used it ever had a new hair to start on his head.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“How do you account for its having made the hair grow on <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Plunket’s head?” asked the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Post</i> Man.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How do I account for it?” repeated the barber in so dangerous a tone that the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Post</i> Man shuddered. “How do I account for it? I’ll tell you how I account for it. I went out one day to where <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Plunket lived on the edge of town and asked for him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Which <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Plunket?’ asked a man who came out to the gate?</p>
|
||||
<p>“How do you account for its having made the hair grow on <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Plunket’s head?” asked the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Post</i> Man.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How do I account for it?” repeated the barber in so dangerous a tone that the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Post</i> Man shuddered. “How do I account for it? I’ll tell you how I account for it. I went out one day to where <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Plunket lived on the edge of town and asked for him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Which <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Plunket?’ asked a man who came out to the gate?</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Come off,’ I said, ‘the Plunket that lives here.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘They’ve both moved,’ said the man.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘What do you mean by “both?” ’ I said, and then I began to think, and I said to the man:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“By-and-by I got him down to local gossip and answering questions.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘I thought everybody knowed who lived in the big white house on the hill. It’s Colonel Allyn, the biggest man and the finest quality in Virginia, or anywhere else. They’re the oldest family in the State. That was his daughter that got off the train. She’s been up to Illinois to see her aunt, who is sick.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I registered at the hotel, and on the third day I caught the young lady walking in the front yard, down next to the paling fence. I stopped and raised my hat—there wasn’t any other way.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Excuse me,’ says I, ‘can you tell me where <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hinkle lives?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Excuse me,’ says I, ‘can you tell me where <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Hinkle lives?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“She looks at me as cool as if I was the man come to see about the weeding of the garden, but I thought I saw just a slight twinkle of fun in her eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘No one of that name lives in Birchton,’ says she. ‘That is,’ she goes on, ‘as far as I know. Is the gentleman you are seeking white?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, that tickled me. ‘No kidding,’ says I. ‘I’m not looking for smoke, even if I do come from Pittsburgh.’</p>
|
||||
@ -64,7 +64,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Not if you hadn’t waked up when the train started in Shelbyville,’ says she; and then she turned almost as red as one of the roses on the bushes in the yard. I remembered I had dropped off to sleep on a bench in the Shelbyville station, waiting to see which train she took, and only just managed to wake up in time.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And then I told her why I had come, as respectful and earnest as I could. And I told her everything about myself, and what I was making, and how that all I asked was just to get acquainted with her and try to get her to like me.</p>
|
||||
<p>“She smiles a little, and blushes some, but her eyes never get mixed up. They look straight at whatever she’s talking to.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I never had anyone talk like this to me before, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pescud,’ says she. ‘What did you say your name is—John?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I never had anyone talk like this to me before, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Pescud,’ says she. ‘What did you say your name is—John?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘John <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">A.</abbr>,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘And you came mighty near missing the train at Powhatan Junction, too,’ says she, with a laugh that sounded as good as a mileage-book to me.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘How did you know?’ I asked.</p>
|
||||
@ -74,7 +74,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I belted one of ’em once in the Duquesne Hotel, in Pittsburgh,’ says I, ‘and he didn’t offer to resent it. He was there dividing his attentions between Monongahela whiskey and heiresses, and he got fresh.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Of course,’ she goes on, ‘my father wouldn’t allow a drummer to set his foot in Elmcroft. If he knew that I was talking to one over the fence he would lock me in my room.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Would <em>you</em> let me come there?’ says I. ‘Would <em>you</em> talk to me if I was to call? For,’ I goes on, ‘if you said I might come and see you, the earls might be belted or suspendered, or pinned up with safety-pins, as far as I am concerned.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I must not talk to you,’ she says, ‘because we have not been introduced. It is not exactly proper. So I will say goodbye, <abbr>Mr.</abbr>—’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I must not talk to you,’ she says, ‘because we have not been introduced. It is not exactly proper. So I will say goodbye, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr>—’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Say the name,’ says I. ‘You haven’t forgotten it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Pescud,’ says she, a little mad.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘The rest of the name!’ I demands, cool as could be.</p>
|
||||
@ -97,7 +97,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘If there was,’ says I, ‘he can’t claim kin with our bunch. We’ve always lived in and around Pittsburgh. I’ve got an uncle in the real-estate business, and one in trouble somewhere out in Kansas. You can inquire about any of the rest of us from anybody in old Smoky Town, and get satisfactory replies. Did you ever run across that story about the captain of the whaler who tried to make a sailor say his prayers?’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘It occurs to me that I have never been so fortunate,’ says the colonel.</p>
|
||||
<p>“So I told it to him. Laugh! I was wishing to myself that he was a customer. What a bill of glass I’d sell him! And then he says:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘The relating of anecdotes and humorous occurrences has always seemed to me, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pescud, to be a particularly agreeable way of promoting and perpetuating amenities between friends. With your permission, I will relate to you a foxhunting story with which I was personally connected, and which may furnish you some amusement.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘The relating of anecdotes and humorous occurrences has always seemed to me, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Pescud, to be a particularly agreeable way of promoting and perpetuating amenities between friends. With your permission, I will relate to you a foxhunting story with which I was personally connected, and which may furnish you some amusement.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“So he tells it. It takes forty minutes by the watch. Did I laugh? Well, say! When I got my face straight he calls in old Pete, the superannuated darky, and sends him down to the hotel to bring up my valise. It was Elmcroft for me while I was in the town.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Two evenings later I got a chance to speak a word with Miss Jessie alone on the porch while the colonel was thinking up another story.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘It’s going to be a fine evening,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,60 +8,60 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="between-rounds" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Between Rounds</h2>
|
||||
<p>The May moon shone bright upon the private boardinghouse of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Murphy. By reference to the almanac a large amount of territory will be discovered upon which its rays also fell. Spring was in its heydey, with hay fever soon to follow. The parks were green with new leaves and buyers for the Western and Southern trade. Flowers and summer-resort agents were blowing; the air and answers to Lawson were growing milder; hand-organs, fountains and pinochle were playing everywhere.</p>
|
||||
<p>The windows of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Murphy’s boardinghouse were open. A group of boarders were seated on the high stoop upon round, flat mats like German pancakes.</p>
|
||||
<p>In one of the second-floor front windows <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey awaited her husband. Supper was cooling on the table. Its heat went into <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey.</p>
|
||||
<p>At nine <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey came. He carried his coat on his arm and his pipe in his teeth; and he apologised for disturbing the boarders on the steps as he selected spots of stone between them on which to set his size 9, width <i epub:type="z3998:grapheme">D</i>’s.</p>
|
||||
<p>The May moon shone bright upon the private boardinghouse of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Murphy. By reference to the almanac a large amount of territory will be discovered upon which its rays also fell. Spring was in its heydey, with hay fever soon to follow. The parks were green with new leaves and buyers for the Western and Southern trade. Flowers and summer-resort agents were blowing; the air and answers to Lawson were growing milder; hand-organs, fountains and pinochle were playing everywhere.</p>
|
||||
<p>The windows of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Murphy’s boardinghouse were open. A group of boarders were seated on the high stoop upon round, flat mats like German pancakes.</p>
|
||||
<p>In one of the second-floor front windows <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey awaited her husband. Supper was cooling on the table. Its heat went into <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey.</p>
|
||||
<p>At nine <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey came. He carried his coat on his arm and his pipe in his teeth; and he apologised for disturbing the boarders on the steps as he selected spots of stone between them on which to set his size 9, width <i epub:type="z3998:grapheme">D</i>’s.</p>
|
||||
<p>As he opened the door of his room he received a surprise. Instead of the usual stove-lid or potato-masher for him to dodge, came only words.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey reckoned that the benign May moon had softened the breast of his spouse.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey reckoned that the benign May moon had softened the breast of his spouse.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I heard ye,” came the oral substitutes for kitchenware. “Ye can apollygise to riffraff of the streets for settin’ yer unhandy feet on the tails of their frocks, but ye’d walk on the neck of yer wife the length of a clothesline without so much as a ‘Kiss me fut,’ and I’m sure it’s that long from rubberin’ out the windy for ye and the victuals cold such as there’s money to buy after drinkin’ up yer wages at Gallegher’s every Saturday evenin’, and the gas man here twice today for his.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Woman!” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey, dashing his coat and hat upon a chair, “the noise of ye is an insult to me appetite. When ye run down politeness ye take the mortar from between the bricks of the foundations of society. ’Tis no more than exercisin’ the acrimony of a gentleman when ye ask the dissent of ladies blockin’ the way for steppin’ between them. Will ye bring the pig’s face of ye out of the windy and see to the food?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey arose heavily and went to the stove. There was something in her manner that warned <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey. When the corners of her mouth went down suddenly like a barometer it usually foretold a fall of crockery and tinware.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Pig’s face, is it?” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey, and hurled a stewpan full of bacon and turnips at her lord.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey was no novice at repartee. He knew what should follow the entrée. On the table was a roast sirloin of pork, garnished with shamrocks. He retorted with this, and drew the appropriate return of a bread pudding in an earthen dish. A hunk of Swiss cheese accurately thrown by her husband struck <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey below one eye. When she replied with a well-aimed coffeepot full of a hot, black, semi-fragrant liquid the battle, according to courses, should have ended.</p>
|
||||
<p>But <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey was no 50-cent <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôter</span>. Let cheap Bohemians consider coffee the end, if they would. Let them make that <span xml:lang="fr">faux pas</span>. He was foxier still. Finger-bowls were not beyond the compass of his experience. They were not to be had in the Pension Murphy; but their equivalent was at hand. Triumphantly he sent the graniteware wash basin at the head of his matrimonial adversary. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey dodged in time. She reached for a flatiron, with which, as a sort of cordial, she hoped to bring the gastronomical duel to a close. But a loud, wailing scream downstairs caused both her and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey to pause in a sort of involuntary armistice.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Woman!” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey, dashing his coat and hat upon a chair, “the noise of ye is an insult to me appetite. When ye run down politeness ye take the mortar from between the bricks of the foundations of society. ’Tis no more than exercisin’ the acrimony of a gentleman when ye ask the dissent of ladies blockin’ the way for steppin’ between them. Will ye bring the pig’s face of ye out of the windy and see to the food?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey arose heavily and went to the stove. There was something in her manner that warned <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey. When the corners of her mouth went down suddenly like a barometer it usually foretold a fall of crockery and tinware.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Pig’s face, is it?” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey, and hurled a stewpan full of bacon and turnips at her lord.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey was no novice at repartee. He knew what should follow the entrée. On the table was a roast sirloin of pork, garnished with shamrocks. He retorted with this, and drew the appropriate return of a bread pudding in an earthen dish. A hunk of Swiss cheese accurately thrown by her husband struck <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey below one eye. When she replied with a well-aimed coffeepot full of a hot, black, semi-fragrant liquid the battle, according to courses, should have ended.</p>
|
||||
<p>But <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey was no 50-cent <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôter</span>. Let cheap Bohemians consider coffee the end, if they would. Let them make that <span xml:lang="fr">faux pas</span>. He was foxier still. Finger-bowls were not beyond the compass of his experience. They were not to be had in the Pension Murphy; but their equivalent was at hand. Triumphantly he sent the graniteware wash basin at the head of his matrimonial adversary. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey dodged in time. She reached for a flatiron, with which, as a sort of cordial, she hoped to bring the gastronomical duel to a close. But a loud, wailing scream downstairs caused both her and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey to pause in a sort of involuntary armistice.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the sidewalk at the corner of the house Policeman Cleary was standing with one ear upturned, listening to the crash of household utensils.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Tis Jawn McCaskey and his missis at it again,” meditated the policeman. “I wonder shall I go up and stop the row. I will not. Married folks they are; and few pleasures they have. ’Twill not last long. Sure, they’ll have to borrow more dishes to keep it up with.”</p>
|
||||
<p>And just then came the loud scream below-stairs, betokening fear or dire extremity. “ ’Tis probably the cat,” said Policeman Cleary, and walked hastily in the other direction.</p>
|
||||
<p>The boarders on the steps were fluttered. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Toomey, an insurance solicitor by birth and an investigator by profession, went inside to analyse the scream. He returned with the news that <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Murphy’s little boy, Mike, was lost. Following the messenger, out bounced <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Murphy—two hundred pounds in tears and hysterics, clutching the air and howling to the sky for the loss of thirty pounds of freckles and mischief. Bathos, truly; but <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Toomey sat down at the side of Miss Purdy, millinery, and their hands came together in sympathy. The two old maids, Misses Walsh, who complained every day about the noise in the halls, inquired immediately if anybody had looked behind the clock.</p>
|
||||
<p>The boarders on the steps were fluttered. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Toomey, an insurance solicitor by birth and an investigator by profession, went inside to analyse the scream. He returned with the news that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Murphy’s little boy, Mike, was lost. Following the messenger, out bounced <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Murphy—two hundred pounds in tears and hysterics, clutching the air and howling to the sky for the loss of thirty pounds of freckles and mischief. Bathos, truly; but <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Toomey sat down at the side of Miss Purdy, millinery, and their hands came together in sympathy. The two old maids, Misses Walsh, who complained every day about the noise in the halls, inquired immediately if anybody had looked behind the clock.</p>
|
||||
<p>Major Grigg, who sat by his fat wife on the top step, arose and buttoned his coat. “The little one lost?” he exclaimed. “I will scour the city.” His wife never allowed him out after dark. But now she said: “Go, Ludovic!” in a baritone voice. “Whoever can look upon that mother’s grief without springing to her relief has a heart of stone.” “Give me some thirty or—sixty cents, my love,” said the Major. “Lost children sometimes stray far. I may need carfares.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Old man Denny, hall room, fourth floor back, who sat on the lowest step, trying to read a paper by the street lamp, turned over a page to follow up the article about the carpenters’ strike. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Murphy shrieked to the moon: “Oh, ar-r-Mike, f’r Gawd’s sake, where is me little bit av a boy?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Old man Denny, hall room, fourth floor back, who sat on the lowest step, trying to read a paper by the street lamp, turned over a page to follow up the article about the carpenters’ strike. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Murphy shrieked to the moon: “Oh, ar-r-Mike, f’r Gawd’s sake, where is me little bit av a boy?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“When’d ye see him last?” asked old man Denny, with one eye on the report of the Building Trades League.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh,” wailed <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Murphy, “ ’twas yisterday, or maybe four hours ago! I dunno. But it’s lost he is, me little boy Mike. He was playin’ on the sidewalk only this mornin’—or was it Wednesday? I’m that busy with work, ’tis hard to keep up with dates. But I’ve looked the house over from top to cellar, and it’s gone he is. Oh, for the love av Hiven—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh,” wailed <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Murphy, “ ’twas yisterday, or maybe four hours ago! I dunno. But it’s lost he is, me little boy Mike. He was playin’ on the sidewalk only this mornin’—or was it Wednesday? I’m that busy with work, ’tis hard to keep up with dates. But I’ve looked the house over from top to cellar, and it’s gone he is. Oh, for the love av Hiven—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Silent, grim, colossal, the big city has ever stood against its revilers. They call it hard as iron; they say that no pulse of pity beats in its bosom; they compare its streets with lonely forests and deserts of lava. But beneath the hard crust of the lobster is found a delectable and luscious food. Perhaps a different simile would have been wiser. Still, nobody should take offence. We would call no one a lobster without good and sufficient claws.</p>
|
||||
<p>No calamity so touches the common heart of humanity as does the straying of a little child. Their feet are so uncertain and feeble; the ways are so steep and strange.</p>
|
||||
<p>Major Griggs hurried down to the corner, and up the avenue into Billy’s place. “Gimme a rye-high,” he said to the servitor. “Haven’t seen a bowlegged, dirty-faced little devil of a six-year-old lost kid around here anywhere, have you?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Toomey retained Miss Purdy’s hand on the steps. “Think of that dear little babe,” said Miss Purdy, “lost from his mother’s side—perhaps already fallen beneath the iron hoofs of galloping steeds—oh, isn’t it dreadful?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ain’t that right?” agreed <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Toomey, squeezing her hand. “Say I start out and help look for um!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Perhaps,” said Miss Purdy, “you should. But, oh, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Toomey, you are so dashing—so reckless—suppose in your enthusiasm some accident should befall you, then what—”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Toomey retained Miss Purdy’s hand on the steps. “Think of that dear little babe,” said Miss Purdy, “lost from his mother’s side—perhaps already fallen beneath the iron hoofs of galloping steeds—oh, isn’t it dreadful?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ain’t that right?” agreed <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Toomey, squeezing her hand. “Say I start out and help look for um!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Perhaps,” said Miss Purdy, “you should. But, oh, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Toomey, you are so dashing—so reckless—suppose in your enthusiasm some accident should befall you, then what—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Old man Denny read on about the arbitration agreement, with one finger on the lines.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the second floor front <abbr>Mr.</abbr> and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey came to the window to recover their second wind. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey was scooping turnips out of his vest with a crooked forefinger, and his lady was wiping an eye that the salt of the roast pork had not benefited. They heard the outcry below, and thrust their heads out of the window.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Tis little Mike is lost,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey, in a hushed voice, “the beautiful, little, trouble-making angel of a gossoon!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The bit of a boy mislaid?” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey, leaning out of the window. “Why, now, that’s bad enough, entirely. The childer, they be different. If ’twas a woman I’d be willin’, for they leave peace behind ’em when they go.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Disregarding the thrust, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey caught her husband’s arm.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the second floor front <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey came to the window to recover their second wind. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey was scooping turnips out of his vest with a crooked forefinger, and his lady was wiping an eye that the salt of the roast pork had not benefited. They heard the outcry below, and thrust their heads out of the window.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Tis little Mike is lost,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey, in a hushed voice, “the beautiful, little, trouble-making angel of a gossoon!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The bit of a boy mislaid?” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey, leaning out of the window. “Why, now, that’s bad enough, entirely. The childer, they be different. If ’twas a woman I’d be willin’, for they leave peace behind ’em when they go.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Disregarding the thrust, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey caught her husband’s arm.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jawn,” she said, sentimentally, “Missis Murphy’s little bye is lost. ’Tis a great city for losing little boys. Six years old he was. Jawn, ’tis the same age our little bye would have been if we had had one six years ago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“We never did,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey, lingering with the fact.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We never did,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey, lingering with the fact.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But if we had, Jawn, think what sorrow would be in our hearts this night, with our little Phelan run away and stolen in the city nowheres at all.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ye talk foolishness,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey. “ ’Tis Pat he would be named, after me old father in Cantrim.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ye lie!” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey, without anger. “Me brother was worth tin dozen bog-trotting McCaskeys. After him would the bye be named.” She leaned over the windowsill and looked down at the hurrying and bustle below.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jawn,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey, softly, “I’m sorry I was hasty wid ye.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ye talk foolishness,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey. “ ’Tis Pat he would be named, after me old father in Cantrim.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ye lie!” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey, without anger. “Me brother was worth tin dozen bog-trotting McCaskeys. After him would the bye be named.” She leaned over the windowsill and looked down at the hurrying and bustle below.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jawn,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey, softly, “I’m sorry I was hasty wid ye.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Twas hasty puddin’, as ye say,” said her husband, “and hurry-up turnips and get-a-move-on-ye coffee. ’Twas what ye could call a quick lunch, all right, and tell no lie.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey slipped her arm inside her husband’s and took his rough hand in hers.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Listen at the cryin’ of poor <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Murphy,” she said. “ ’Tis an awful thing for a bit of a bye to be lost in this great big city. If ’twas our little Phelan, Jawn, I’d be breakin’ me heart.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Awkwardly <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey withdrew his hand. But he laid it around the nearing shoulder of his wife.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey slipped her arm inside her husband’s and took his rough hand in hers.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Listen at the cryin’ of poor <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Murphy,” she said. “ ’Tis an awful thing for a bit of a bye to be lost in this great big city. If ’twas our little Phelan, Jawn, I’d be breakin’ me heart.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Awkwardly <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey withdrew his hand. But he laid it around the nearing shoulder of his wife.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Tis foolishness, of course,” said he, roughly, “but I’d be cut up some meself if our little Pat was kidnapped or anything. But there never was any childer for us. Sometimes I’ve been ugly and hard with ye, Judy. Forget it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>They leaned together, and looked down at the heart-drama being acted below.</p>
|
||||
<p>Long they sat thus. People surged along the sidewalk, crowding, questioning, filling the air with rumours, and inconsequent surmises. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Murphy ploughed back and forth in their midst, like a soft mountain down which plunged an audible cataract of tears. Couriers came and went.</p>
|
||||
<p>Long they sat thus. People surged along the sidewalk, crowding, questioning, filling the air with rumours, and inconsequent surmises. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Murphy ploughed back and forth in their midst, like a soft mountain down which plunged an audible cataract of tears. Couriers came and went.</p>
|
||||
<p>Loud voices and a renewed uproar were raised in front of the boardinghouse.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What’s up now, Judy?” asked <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Tis Missis Murphy’s voice,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey, harking. “She says she’s after finding little Mike asleep behind the roll of old linoleum under the bed in her room.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey laughed loudly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What’s up now, Judy?” asked <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Tis Missis Murphy’s voice,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey, harking. “She says she’s after finding little Mike asleep behind the roll of old linoleum under the bed in her room.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McCaskey laughed loudly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s yer Phelan,” he shouted, sardonically. “Divil a bit would a Pat have done that trick. If the bye we never had is strayed and stole, by the powers, call him Phelan, and see him hide out under the bed like a mangy pup.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey arose heavily, and went toward the dish closet, with the corners of her mouth drawn down.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey arose heavily, and went toward the dish closet, with the corners of her mouth drawn down.</p>
|
||||
<p>Policeman Cleary came back around the corner as the crowd dispersed. Surprised, he upturned an ear toward the McCaskey apartment, where the crash of irons and chinaware and the ring of hurled kitchen utensils seemed as loud as before. Policeman Cleary took out his timepiece.</p>
|
||||
<p>“By the deported snakes!” he exclaimed, “Jawn McCaskey and his lady have been fightin’ for an hour and a quarter by the watch. The missis could give him forty pounds weight. Strength to his arm.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Policeman Cleary strolled back around the corner.</p>
|
||||
<p>Old man Denny folded his paper and hurried up the steps just as <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Murphy was about to lock the door for the night.</p>
|
||||
<p>Old man Denny folded his paper and hurried up the steps just as <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Murphy was about to lock the door for the night.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -100,12 +100,12 @@
|
||||
<p>He leaned his head on his hands for a moment, and as he did so a sound behind him caused his heart to leap with guilty fear, but before he could rise, a hand came over his shoulder and grasped the file.</p>
|
||||
<p>He rose quickly, as white as paper, rattling his chair loudly on the stone floor.</p>
|
||||
<p>The boy who land spoken to him earlier stood contemplating him with contemptuous and flashing eyes, and quietly placed the file in the left breast pocket of his coat.</p>
|
||||
<p>“So, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sharp, by nature as well as by name,” he said, “it seems that I was right in waiting behind the door in order to see you safely out. You will appreciate the pleasure I feel in having done so when I tell you my name is Harris. My mother owns the land on which you have filed, and if there is any justice in Texas she shall hold it. I am not certain, but I think I saw you place a paper in this file this afternoon, and it is barely possible that it may be of value to me. I was also impressed with the idea that you desired to remove it again, but had not the opportunity. Anyway, I shall keep it until tomorrow and let the Commissioner decide.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Far back among <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sharp’s ancestors there must have been some of the old berserker blood, for his caution, his presence of mind left him, and left him possessed of a blind, devilish, unreasoning rage that showed itself in a moment in the white glitter of his eye.</p>
|
||||
<p>“So, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sharp, by nature as well as by name,” he said, “it seems that I was right in waiting behind the door in order to see you safely out. You will appreciate the pleasure I feel in having done so when I tell you my name is Harris. My mother owns the land on which you have filed, and if there is any justice in Texas she shall hold it. I am not certain, but I think I saw you place a paper in this file this afternoon, and it is barely possible that it may be of value to me. I was also impressed with the idea that you desired to remove it again, but had not the opportunity. Anyway, I shall keep it until tomorrow and let the Commissioner decide.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Far back among <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sharp’s ancestors there must have been some of the old berserker blood, for his caution, his presence of mind left him, and left him possessed of a blind, devilish, unreasoning rage that showed itself in a moment in the white glitter of his eye.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Give me that file, boy,” he said, thickly, holding out his hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am no such fool, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sharp,” said the youth. “This file shall be laid before the Commissioner tomorrow for examination. If he finds—Help! Help!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am no such fool, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sharp,” said the youth. “This file shall be laid before the Commissioner tomorrow for examination. If he finds—Help! Help!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Sharp was upon him like a tiger and bore him to the floor. The boy was strong and vigorous, but the suddenness of the attack gave him no chance to resist. He struggled up again to his feet, but it was an animal, with blazing eyes and cruel-looking teeth that fought him, instead of a man.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sharp, a man of high standing and good report, was battling for his reputation.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sharp, a man of high standing and good report, was battling for his reputation.</p>
|
||||
<p>Presently there was a dull sound, and another, and still one more, and a blade flashing white and then red, and Edward Harris dropped down like some stuffed effigy of a man, that boys make for sport, with his limbs all crumpled and lax, on the stone floor of the Land Office.</p>
|
||||
<p>The old watchman was deaf, and heard nothing.</p>
|
||||
<p>The little dog barked at the foot of the stairs until his master made him come into his room.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="bill-nye" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Bill Nye</h2>
|
||||
<p>Bill Nye, who recently laid down his pen for all time, was a unique figure in the field of humor. His best work probably more nearly represented American humor than that of any other writer. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nye had a sense of ludicrous that was keen and judicious. His humor was peculiarly American in that it depended upon sharp and unexpected contrasts, and the bringing of opposites into unlooked-for comparison for its effect. Again, he had the true essence of kindliness, without which humor is stripped of its greatest component part.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bill Nye, who recently laid down his pen for all time, was a unique figure in the field of humor. His best work probably more nearly represented American humor than that of any other writer. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Nye had a sense of ludicrous that was keen and judicious. His humor was peculiarly American in that it depended upon sharp and unexpected contrasts, and the bringing of opposites into unlooked-for comparison for its effect. Again, he had the true essence of kindliness, without which humor is stripped of its greatest component part.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bill Nye’s jokes never had a sting. They played like summer lightning around the horizon of life, illuminating and spreading bright, if transitory, pictures upon the sky, but they were as harmless as the smile of a child. The brain of the man conceived the swift darts that he threw, but his great manly heart broke off their points.</p>
|
||||
<p>He knew human nature as a scholar knows his book, and the knowledge did not embitter him. He saw all the goodness in frailty, and his clear eyes penetrated the frailty of goodness.</p>
|
||||
<p>His was the child’s heart, the scholar’s knowledge, and the philosopher’s view of life. He might have won laurels in other fields, for he was a careful reasoner, and a close observer, but he showed his greatness in putting aside cold and fruitless discussions that have wearied the world long ago, and set himself the task of arousing bubbling laughter instead of consuming doubt.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -53,7 +53,7 @@
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“There were about fifteen items of the same kind and every one of them was a dead shot for big damages. I glanced at the society columns and saw a few harmless little squibs like the following:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>‘<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> General Crowder gave a big ball last night on Johnson Avenue. It does seem like she would get a divorce from that ticket agent in Kansas City before she tried to cut such a swell as old Crowder’s wife.’</p>
|
||||
<p>‘<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> General Crowder gave a big ball last night on Johnson Avenue. It does seem like she would get a divorce from that ticket agent in Kansas City before she tried to cut such a swell as old Crowder’s wife.’</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Henry Baumgarten beat his wife again last night.’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,9 +9,9 @@
|
||||
<article id="book-reviews" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Book Reviews</h2>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Unabridged Dictionary by Noah Webster</i>, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">LL.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>We find on our table quite an exhaustive treatise on various subjects, written in <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">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 epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Webster’s vocabulary is large, and he always uses the right word in the right place. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Webster’s work is thorough and we predict that he will be heard from again.</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>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 epub:type="z3998:name-title">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>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -13,13 +13,13 @@
|
||||
<p>“Sit down,” said double-chinned, gray Lawyer Oldport. “The worst has not been told you. Oh, the hardships of the rich! The papers are not yet ready to sign. They will be laid before you tomorrow at eleven. You will miss another day. Twice shall the barber tweak the helpless nose of a Blinker. Be thankful that your sorrows do not embrace a haircut.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“If,” said Blinker, rising, “the act did not involve more signing of papers I would take my business out of your hands at once. Give me a cigar, please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“If,” said Lawyer Oldport, “I had cared to see an old friend’s son gulped down at one mouthful by sharks I would have ordered you to take it away long ago. Now, let’s quit fooling, Alexander. Besides the grinding task of signing your name some thirty times tomorrow, I must impose upon you the consideration of a matter of business—of business, and I may say humanity or right. I spoke to you about this five years ago, but you would not listen—you were in a hurry for a coaching trip, I think. The subject has come up again. The property—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, property!” interrupted Blinker. “Dear <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Oldport, I think you mentioned tomorrow. Let’s have it all at one dose tomorrow—signatures and property and snappy rubber bands and that smelly sealing-wax and all. Have luncheon with me? Well, I’ll try to remember to drop in at eleven tomorrow. Morning.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, property!” interrupted Blinker. “Dear <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Oldport, I think you mentioned tomorrow. Let’s have it all at one dose tomorrow—signatures and property and snappy rubber bands and that smelly sealing-wax and all. Have luncheon with me? Well, I’ll try to remember to drop in at eleven tomorrow. Morning.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Blinker wealth was in lands, tenements and hereditaments, as the legal phrase goes. Lawyer Oldport had once taken Alexander in his little pulmonary gasoline runabout to see the many buildings and rows of buildings that he owned in the city. For Alexander was sole heir. They had amused Blinker very much. The houses looked so incapable of producing the big sums of money that Lawyer Oldport kept piling up in banks for him to spend.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the evening Blinker went to one of his clubs, intending to dine. Nobody was there except some old fogies playing whist who spoke to him with grave politeness and glared at him with savage contempt. Everybody was out of town. But here he was kept in like a schoolboy to write his name over and over on pieces of paper. His wounds were deep.</p>
|
||||
<p>Blinker turned his back on the fogies, and said to the club steward who had come forward with some nonsense about cold fresh salmon roe:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Symons, I’m going to Coney Island.” He said it as one might say: “All’s off; I’m going to jump into the river.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The joke pleased Symons. He laughed within a sixteenth of a note of the audibility permitted by the laws governing employees.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Certainly, sir,” he tittered. “Of course, sir, I think I can see you at Coney, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Blinker.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Certainly, sir,” he tittered. “Of course, sir, I think I can see you at Coney, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Blinker.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Blinker got a pager and looked up the movements of Sunday steamboats. Then he found a cab at the first corner and drove to a North River pier. He stood in line, as democratic as you or I, and bought a ticket, and was trampled upon and shoved forward until, at last, he found himself on the upper deck of the boat staring brazenly at a girl who sat alone upon a camp stool. But Blinker did not intend to be brazen; the girl was so wonderfully good looking that he forgot for one minute that he was the prince incog, and behaved just as he did in society.</p>
|
||||
<p>She was looking at him, too, and not severely. A puff of wind threatened Blinker’s straw hat. He caught it warily and settled it again. The movement gave the effect of a bow. The girl nodded and smiled, and in another instant he was seated at her side. She was dressed all in white, she was paler than Blinker imagined milkmaids and girls of humble stations to be, but she was as tidy as a cherry blossom, and her steady, supremely frank gray eyes looked out from the intrepid depths of an unshadowed and untroubled soul.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How dare you raise your hat to me?” she asked, with a smile-redeemed severity.</p>
|
||||
@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Everything,” he answered, almost savagely. “Why don’t you entertain your company in the house where you live? Is it necessary to pick up Tom, Dick and Harry on the streets?”</p>
|
||||
<p>She kept her absolutely ingenuous eyes upon his. “If you could see the place where I live you wouldn’t ask that. I live in Brickdust Row. They call it that because there’s red dust from the bricks crumbling over everything. I’ve lived there for more than four years. There’s no place to receive company. You can’t have anybody come to your room. What else is there to do? A girl has got to meet the men, hasn’t she?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” he said, hoarsely. “A girl has got to meet a—has got to meet the men.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The first time one spoke to me on the street,” she continued, “I ran home and cried all night. But you get used to it. I meet a good many nice fellows at church. I go on rainy days and stand in the vestibule until one comes up with an umbrella. I wish there was a parlor, so I could ask you to call, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Blinker—are you really sure it isn’t ‘Smith,’ now?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The first time one spoke to me on the street,” she continued, “I ran home and cried all night. But you get used to it. I meet a good many nice fellows at church. I go on rainy days and stand in the vestibule until one comes up with an umbrella. I wish there was a parlor, so I could ask you to call, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Blinker—are you really sure it isn’t ‘Smith,’ now?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The boat landed safely. Blinker had a confused impression of walking with the girl through quiet crosstown streets until she stopped at a corner and held out her hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I live just one more block over,” she said. “Thank you for a very pleasant afternoon.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Blinker muttered something and plunged northward till he found a cab. A big, gray church loomed slowly at his right. Blinker shook his fist at it through the window.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -31,7 +31,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“De gent says he’s had de ski-bunk put on him widout no cause. He says he’s no bum guy; and, lady, yer read dat letter, and I’ll bet yer he’s a white sport, all right.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The young lady unfolded the letter; somewhat doubtfully, and read it.</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dear <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Arnold</span>: I want to thank you for your most kind and opportune aid to my daughter last Friday evening, when she was overcome by an attack of her old heart-trouble in the conservatory at <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Waldron’s reception. Had you not been near to catch her as she fell and to render proper attention, we might have lost her. I would be glad if you would call and undertake the treatment of her case.</p>
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dear <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Arnold</span>: I want to thank you for your most kind and opportune aid to my daughter last Friday evening, when she was overcome by an attack of her old heart-trouble in the conservatory at <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Waldron’s reception. Had you not been near to catch her as she fell and to render proper attention, we might have lost her. I would be glad if you would call and undertake the treatment of her case.</p>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:valediction">Gratefully yours,</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:signature">Robert Ashburton.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -94,7 +94,7 @@
|
||||
<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 epub:type="z3998:initialism">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 epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Vesey,” said the <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">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>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>
|
||||
@ -102,7 +102,7 @@
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>On the second day following, the city editor halted at Vesey’s desk where the reporter was writing the story of a man who had broken his leg by falling into a coal-hole—Ames having failed to find a murder motive in it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The old man says your salary is to be raised to twenty a week,” said Scott.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said Vesey. “Every little helps. Say—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Scott, which would you say—‘We can state without fear of successful contradiction,’ or, ‘On the whole it can be safely asserted’?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said Vesey. “Every little helps. Say—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Scott, which would you say—‘We can state without fear of successful contradiction,’ or, ‘On the whole it can be safely asserted’?”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="caught" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Caught</h2>
|
||||
<p>The plans for the detention of the flying President Miraflores and his companion at the coast line seemed hardly likely to fail. <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Zavalla himself had gone to the port of Alazan to establish a guard at that point. At Solitas the Liberal patriot Varras could be depended upon to keep close watch. Goodwin held himself responsible for the district about Coralio.</p>
|
||||
<p>The plans for the detention of the flying President Miraflores and his companion at the coast line seemed hardly likely to fail. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Zavalla himself had gone to the port of Alazan to establish a guard at that point. At Solitas the Liberal patriot Varras could be depended upon to keep close watch. Goodwin held himself responsible for the district about Coralio.</p>
|
||||
<p>The news of the president’s flight had been disclosed to no one in the coast towns save trusted members of the ambitious political party that was desirous of succeeding to power. The telegraph wire running from San Mateo to the coast had been cut far up on the mountain trail by an emissary of Zavalla’s. Long before this could be repaired and word received along it from the capital the fugitives would have reached the coast and the question of escape or capture been solved.</p>
|
||||
<p>Goodwin had stationed armed sentinels at frequent intervals along the shore for a mile in each direction from Coralio. They were instructed to keep a vigilant lookout during the night to prevent Miraflores from attempting to embark stealthily by means of some boat or sloop found by chance at the water’s edge. A dozen patrols walked the streets of Coralio unsuspected, ready to intercept the truant official should he show himself there.</p>
|
||||
<p>Goodwin was very well convinced that no precautions had been overlooked. He strolled about the streets that bore such high-sounding names and were but narrow, grass-covered lanes, lending his own aid to the vigil that had been entrusted to him by Bob Englehart.</p>
|
||||
@ -50,7 +50,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“That is better,” said the lady. “It makes it possible for me to listen to you. For a second lesson in good manners, you might now tell me by whom I am being insulted.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am sorry,” said Goodwin, leaning one hand on the table, “that my time is too brief for devoting much of it to a course of etiquette. Come, now; I appeal to your good sense. You have shown yourself, in more than one instance, to be well aware of what is to your advantage. This is an occasion that demands the exercise of your undoubted intelligence. There is no mystery here. I am Frank Goodwin; and I have come for the money. I entered this room at a venture. Had I entered the other I would have had it before now. Do you want it in words? The gentleman in Number 10 has betrayed a great trust. He has robbed his people of a large sum, and it is I who will prevent their losing it. I do not say who that gentleman is; but if I should be forced to see him and he should prove to be a certain high official of the republic, it will be my duty to arrest him. The house is guarded. I am offering you liberal terms. It is not absolutely necessary that I confer personally with the gentleman in the next room. Bring me the valise containing the money, and we will call the affair ended.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The lady arose from her chair and stood for a moment, thinking deeply.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you live here, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goodwin?” she asked, presently.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you live here, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Goodwin?” she asked, presently.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What is your authority for this intrusion?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am an instrument of the republic. I was advised by wire of the movements of the—gentleman in Number 10.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -20,27 +20,27 @@
|
||||
<p>At Madame Tibault’s last words, Robbins started slightly and cast a keen, sidelong glance at Dumars. The Creole sat, unmoved, dreamily watching the spirals of his cigarette smoke.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was then nine o’clock in the morning and, a few minutes later, the two friends separated, going different ways to their day’s duties. And now follows the brief story of Madame Tibault’s vanished thousands:</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>New Orleans will readily recall to mind the circumstances attendant upon the death of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gaspard Morin, in that city. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin was an artistic goldsmith and jeweller in the old French Quarter, and a man held in the highest esteem. He belonged to one of the oldest French families, and was of some distinction as an antiquary and historian. He was a bachelor, about fifty years of age. He lived in quiet comfort, at one of those rare old hostelries in Royal Street. He was found in his rooms, one morning, dead from unknown causes.</p>
|
||||
<p>New Orleans will readily recall to mind the circumstances attendant upon the death of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gaspard Morin, in that city. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morin was an artistic goldsmith and jeweller in the old French Quarter, and a man held in the highest esteem. He belonged to one of the oldest French families, and was of some distinction as an antiquary and historian. He was a bachelor, about fifty years of age. He lived in quiet comfort, at one of those rare old hostelries in Royal Street. He was found in his rooms, one morning, dead from unknown causes.</p>
|
||||
<p>When his affairs came to be looked into, it was found that he was practically insolvent, his stock of goods and personal property barely—but nearly enough to free him from censure—covering his liabilities. Following came the disclosure that he had been entrusted with the sum of twenty thousand dollars by a former upper servant in the Morin family, one Madame Tibault, which she had received as a legacy from relatives in France.</p>
|
||||
<p>The most searching scrutiny by friends and the legal authorities failed to reveal the disposition of the money. It had vanished, and left no trace. Some weeks before his death, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin had drawn the entire amount, in gold coin, from the bank where it had been placed while he looked about (he told Madame Tibault) for a safe investment. Therefore, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin’s memory seemed doomed to bear the cloud of dishonesty, while madame was, of course, disconsolate.</p>
|
||||
<p>The most searching scrutiny by friends and the legal authorities failed to reveal the disposition of the money. It had vanished, and left no trace. Some weeks before his death, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morin had drawn the entire amount, in gold coin, from the bank where it had been placed while he looked about (he told Madame Tibault) for a safe investment. Therefore, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morin’s memory seemed doomed to bear the cloud of dishonesty, while madame was, of course, disconsolate.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then it was that Robbins and Dumars, representing their respective journals, began one of those pertinacious private investigations which, of late years, the press has adopted as a means to glory and the satisfaction of public curiosity.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<span xml:lang="fr">Cherchez la femme</span>,” said Dumars.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s the ticket!” agreed Robbins. “All roads lead to the eternal feminine. We will find the woman.”</p>
|
||||
<p>They exhausted the knowledge of the staff of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin’s hotel, from the bellboy down to the proprietor. They gently, but inflexibly, pumped the family of the deceased as far as his cousins twice removed. They artfully sounded the employees of the late jeweller, and dogged his customers for information concerning his habits. Like bloodhounds they traced every step of the supposed defaulter, as nearly as might be, for years along the limited and monotonous paths he had trodden.</p>
|
||||
<p>At the end of their labours, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin stood, an immaculate man. Not one weakness that might be served up as a criminal tendency, not one deviation from the path of rectitude, not even a hint of a predilection for the opposite sex, was found to be placed in his debit. His life had been as regular and austere as a monk’s; his habits, simple and unconcealed. Generous, charitable, and a model in propriety, was the verdict of all who knew him.</p>
|
||||
<p>They exhausted the knowledge of the staff of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morin’s hotel, from the bellboy down to the proprietor. They gently, but inflexibly, pumped the family of the deceased as far as his cousins twice removed. They artfully sounded the employees of the late jeweller, and dogged his customers for information concerning his habits. Like bloodhounds they traced every step of the supposed defaulter, as nearly as might be, for years along the limited and monotonous paths he had trodden.</p>
|
||||
<p>At the end of their labours, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morin stood, an immaculate man. Not one weakness that might be served up as a criminal tendency, not one deviation from the path of rectitude, not even a hint of a predilection for the opposite sex, was found to be placed in his debit. His life had been as regular and austere as a monk’s; his habits, simple and unconcealed. Generous, charitable, and a model in propriety, was the verdict of all who knew him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What, now?” asked Robbins, fingering his empty notebook.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<span xml:lang="fr">Cherchez la femme</span>,” said Dumars, lighting a cigarette. “Try Lady Bellairs.”</p>
|
||||
<p>This piece of femininity was the racetrack favourite of the season. Being feminine, she was erratic in her gaits, and there were a few heavy losers about town who had believed she could be true. The reporters applied for information.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin? Certainly not. He was never even a spectator at the races. Not that kind of a man. Surprised the gentlemen should ask.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morin? Certainly not. He was never even a spectator at the races. Not that kind of a man. Surprised the gentlemen should ask.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Shall we throw it up?” suggested Robbins, “and let the puzzle department have a try?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<span xml:lang="fr">Cherchez la femme</span>,” hummed Dumars, reaching for a match. “Try the Little Sisters of What-d’-you-call-’em.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It had developed, during the investigation, that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin had held this benevolent order in particular favour. He had contributed liberally toward its support and had chosen its chapel as his favourite place of private worship. It was said that he went there daily to make his devotions at the altar. Indeed, toward the last of his life his whole mind seemed to have fixed itself upon religious matters, perhaps to the detriment of his worldly affairs.</p>
|
||||
<p>It had developed, during the investigation, that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morin had held this benevolent order in particular favour. He had contributed liberally toward its support and had chosen its chapel as his favourite place of private worship. It was said that he went there daily to make his devotions at the altar. Indeed, toward the last of his life his whole mind seemed to have fixed itself upon religious matters, perhaps to the detriment of his worldly affairs.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thither went Robbins and Dumars, and were admitted through the narrow doorway in the blank stone wall that frowned upon Bonhomme Street. An old woman was sweeping the chapel. She told them that Sister Félicité, the head of the order, was then at prayer at the altar in the alcove. In a few moments she would emerge. Heavy, black curtains screened the alcove. They waited.</p>
|
||||
<p>Soon the curtains were disturbed, and Sister Félicité came forth. She was tall, tragic, bony, and plain-featured, dressed in the black gown and severe bonnet of the sisterhood.</p>
|
||||
<p>Robbins, a good rough-and-tumble reporter, but lacking the delicate touch, began to speak.</p>
|
||||
<p>They represented the press. The lady had, no doubt, heard of the Morin affair. It was necessary, in justice to that gentleman’s memory, to probe the mystery of the lost money. It was known that he had come often to this chapel. Any information, now, concerning <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin’s habits, tastes, the friends he had, and so on, would be of value in doing him posthumous justice.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sister Félicité had heard. Whatever she knew would be willingly told, but it was very little. Monsieur Morin had been a good friend to the order, sometimes contributing as much as a hundred dollars. The sisterhood was an independent one, depending entirely upon private contributions for the means to carry on its charitable work. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin had presented the chapel with silver candlesticks and an altar cloth. He came every day to worship in the chapel, sometimes remaining for an hour. He was a devout Catholic, consecrated to holiness. Yes, and also in the alcove was a statue of the Virgin that he had himself modeled, cast, and presented to the order. Oh, it was cruel to cast a doubt upon so good a man!</p>
|
||||
<p>Robbins was also profoundly grieved at the imputation. But, until it was found what <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin had done with Madame Tibault’s money, he feared the tongue of slander would not be stilled. Sometimes—in fact, very often—in affairs of the kind there was—er—as the saying goes—er—a lady in the case. In absolute confidence, now—if—perhaps—</p>
|
||||
<p>They represented the press. The lady had, no doubt, heard of the Morin affair. It was necessary, in justice to that gentleman’s memory, to probe the mystery of the lost money. It was known that he had come often to this chapel. Any information, now, concerning <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morin’s habits, tastes, the friends he had, and so on, would be of value in doing him posthumous justice.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sister Félicité had heard. Whatever she knew would be willingly told, but it was very little. Monsieur Morin had been a good friend to the order, sometimes contributing as much as a hundred dollars. The sisterhood was an independent one, depending entirely upon private contributions for the means to carry on its charitable work. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morin had presented the chapel with silver candlesticks and an altar cloth. He came every day to worship in the chapel, sometimes remaining for an hour. He was a devout Catholic, consecrated to holiness. Yes, and also in the alcove was a statue of the Virgin that he had himself modeled, cast, and presented to the order. Oh, it was cruel to cast a doubt upon so good a man!</p>
|
||||
<p>Robbins was also profoundly grieved at the imputation. But, until it was found what <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morin had done with Madame Tibault’s money, he feared the tongue of slander would not be stilled. Sometimes—in fact, very often—in affairs of the kind there was—er—as the saying goes—er—a lady in the case. In absolute confidence, now—if—perhaps—</p>
|
||||
<p>Sister Félicité’s large eyes regarded him solemnly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“There was one woman,” she said, slowly, “to whom he bowed—to whom he gave his heart.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Robbins fumbled rapturously for his pencil.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -49,7 +49,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“It’s this way,” explained Trinidad. “We’re from Yellowhammer, and we come kidnappin’ in a gentle kind of a way. One of our leading citizens is stung with the Santa Claus affliction, and he’s due in town tomorrow with half the folderols that’s painted red and made in Germany. The youngest kid we got in Yellowhammer packs a forty-five and a safety razor. Consequently we’re mighty shy on anybody to say ‘Oh’ and ‘Ah’ when we light the candles on the Christmas tree. Now, partner, if you’ll loan us a few kids we guarantee to return ’em safe and sound on Christmas Day. And they’ll come back loaded down with a good time and Swiss Family Robinsons and cornucopias and red drums and similar testimonials. What do you say?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“In other words,” said the Judge, “we have discovered for the first time in our embryonic but progressive little city the inconveniences of the absence of adolescence. The season of the year having approximately arrived during which it is a custom to bestow frivolous but often appreciated gifts upon the young and tender—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I understand,” said the parent, packing his pipe with a forefinger. “I guess I needn’t detain you gentlemen. Me and the old woman have got seven kids, so to speak; and, runnin’ my mind over the bunch, I don’t appear to hit upon none that we could spare for you to take over to your doin’s. The old woman has got some popcorn candy and rag dolls hid in the clothes chest, and we allow to give Christmas a little whirl of our own in a insignificant sort of style. No, I couldn’t, with any degree of avidity, seem to fall in with the idea of lettin’ none of ’em go. Thank you kindly, gentlemen.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Down the slope they drove and up another foothill to the ranch-house of Wiley Wilson. Trinidad recited his appeal and the Judge boomed out his ponderous antiphony. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wiley gathered her two rosy-cheeked youngsters close to her skirts and did not smile until she had seen Wiley laugh and shake his head. Again a refusal.</p>
|
||||
<p>Down the slope they drove and up another foothill to the ranch-house of Wiley Wilson. Trinidad recited his appeal and the Judge boomed out his ponderous antiphony. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wiley gathered her two rosy-cheeked youngsters close to her skirts and did not smile until she had seen Wiley laugh and shake his head. Again a refusal.</p>
|
||||
<p>Trinidad and the Judge vainly exhausted more than half their list before twilight set in among the hills. They spent the night at a stage road hostelry, and set out again early the next morning. The wagon had not acquired a single passenger.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s creepin’ upon my faculties,” remarked Trinidad, “that borrowin’ kids at Christmas is somethin’ like tryin’ to steal butter from a man that’s got hot pancakes a-comin’.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is undoubtedly an indisputable fact,” said the Judge, “that the—ah—family ties seem to be more coherent and assertive at that period of the year.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,11 +9,11 @@
|
||||
<article id="city-perils" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">City Perils</h2>
|
||||
<p>Jeremiah <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">Q.</abbr> Dilworthy lives away up on San Jacinto Street. He walks home every night. On January first, he promised his wife he would not take another drink in a year. He forgot his promise and on Tuesday night we met some of the boys, and when he started home about nine o’clock he was feeling a trifle careless.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dilworthy was an old resident of Houston, and on rainy nights he always walked in the middle of the street, which is well paved.</p>
|
||||
<p>Alas! if <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dilworthy had only remembered the promise made his wife!</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Dilworthy was an old resident of Houston, and on rainy nights he always walked in the middle of the street, which is well paved.</p>
|
||||
<p>Alas! if <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Dilworthy had only remembered the promise made his wife!</p>
|
||||
<p>He started out all right, and just as he was walking up San Jacinto Street he staggered over to one side of the street.</p>
|
||||
<p>A policeman standing on the comer heard a loud yell of despair, and turning, saw a man throw up his arms and then disappear from sight. Before the policeman could call someone who could swim the man had gone for the third and last time.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jeremiah <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">Q.</abbr> Dilworthy had fallen into the sidewalk.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Jeremiah <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">Q.</abbr> Dilworthy had fallen into the sidewalk.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I don’t drink beer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But you breathe through your mouth when you are asleep. Do you know what that does? Brings on angina pectoris and bronchitis. Are you determined to let your ignorance carry you to your grave? Think of your wife and children! Do you know that the common house fly carries 40,000 microbes on his feet, and can convey cholera, typhoid fever, diphtheria, pyaemia, and—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Dang your microbes. I’ve got just three minutes to catch that mail. So long.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Wait just a minute. <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Pasteur says that—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Wait just a minute. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Pasteur says that—”</p>
|
||||
<p>But the victim was gone.</p>
|
||||
<p>Ten minutes later the heeder of new discoveries was knocked down by a wagon while trying to cross the street reading about a new filter, and was carried home by sympathizing friends.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -70,7 +70,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Jeff,’ goes on Andy, ‘this is the exact counterpart of Scudder’s carving. It’s absolutely a dead ringer for it. He’ll pay $2,000 for it as quick as he’d tuck a napkin under his chin. And why shouldn’t it be the genuine other one, anyhow, that the old gypsy whittled out?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Why not, indeed?’ says I. ‘And how shall we go about compelling him to make a voluntary purchase of it?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Andy had his plan all ready, and I’ll tell you how we carried it out.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I got a pair of blue spectacles, put on my black frock coat, rumpled my hair up and became <abbr>Prof.</abbr> Pickleman. I went to another hotel, registered, and sent a telegram to Scudder to come to see me at once on important art business. The elevator dumped him on me in less than an hour. He was a foggy man with a clarion voice, smelling of Connecticut wrappers and naphtha.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I got a pair of blue spectacles, put on my black frock coat, rumpled my hair up and became <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Prof.</abbr> Pickleman. I went to another hotel, registered, and sent a telegram to Scudder to come to see me at once on important art business. The elevator dumped him on me in less than an hour. He was a foggy man with a clarion voice, smelling of Connecticut wrappers and naphtha.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Hello, Profess!’ he shouts. ‘How’s your conduct?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I rumpled my hair some more and gave him a blue glass stare.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Sir,’ says I, ‘are you Cornelius <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">T.</abbr> Scudder? Of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania?’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Later on, her friend Marian asked her how her effort was received.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh,” she said, “they all crowded around me, and appeared to be filled with the utmost delight. Tom, and Henry, and Jim, and Charlie were in raptures. They said that Mary Anderson could not have equaled it. They said they had never heard anything spoken with such dramatic effect and feeling.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Everyone praised you?” asked Marian.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All but one. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Judson sat back in his chair and never applauded at all. He told me after I had finished that he was afraid I had very little dramatic talent at all.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All but one. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Judson sat back in his chair and never applauded at all. He told me after I had finished that he was afraid I had very little dramatic talent at all.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now,” said Marian. “You know who is sincere and genuine?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” said the beautiful girl, with eyes shining with enthusiasm. “The test was a complete success. I detest that odious Judson, and I’m going to begin studying for the stage right away.”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -58,7 +58,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I frisked my pockets and commenced to dribble a stream of halves and quarters into Thomas’s hat. The information was of the pile-driver system of news, and it telescoped my intellects for a while. While I was leaking small change and smiling foolish on the outside, and suffering disturbances internally, I was saying, idiotically and pleasantly:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Thank you, Thomas—thank you—er—a freak, you said, Thomas. Now, could you make out the monstrosity’s entitlements a little clearer, if you please, Thomas?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘This is the fellow,’ says Thomas, pulling out a yellow handbill from his pocket and shoving it under my nose. ‘He’s the Champion Faster of the Universe. I guess that’s why Sis got soft on him. He don’t eat nothing. He’s going to fast forty-nine days. This is the sixth. That’s him.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I looked at the name Thomas pointed out—‘Professor Eduardo Collieri.’ ‘Ah!’ says I, in admiration, ‘that’s not so bad, Ed Collier. I give you credit for the trick. But I don’t give you the girl until she’s <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Freak.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I looked at the name Thomas pointed out—‘Professor Eduardo Collieri.’ ‘Ah!’ says I, in admiration, ‘that’s not so bad, Ed Collier. I give you credit for the trick. But I don’t give you the girl until she’s <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Freak.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I hit the sod in the direction of the show. I came up to the rear of the tent, and, as I did so, a man wiggled out like a snake from under the bottom of the canvas, scrambled to his feet, and ran into me like a locoed bronco. I gathered him by the neck and investigated him by the light of the stars. It is Professor Eduardo Collieri, in human habiliments, with a desperate look in one eye and impatience in the other.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Hello, Curiosity,’ says I. ‘Get still a minute and let’s have a look at your freakship. How do you like being the willopus-wallopus or the bim-bam from Borneo, or whatever name you are denounced by in the sideshow business?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Jeff Peters,’ says Collier, in a weak voice. ‘Turn me loose, or I’ll slug you one. I’m in the extremest kind of a large hurry. Hands off!’</p>
|
||||
@ -77,13 +77,13 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I do,’ I answers; ‘and a pity it is that he has gone back to crime again. I met him outside the tent, and he exposed his intentions of devastating the food crop of the world. ’Tis enormously sad when one’s ideal descends from his pedestal to make a seventeen-year locust of himself.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mame looked me straight in the eye until she had corkscrewed my reflections.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Jeff,’ says she, ‘it isn’t quite like you to talk that way. I don’t care to hear Ed Collier ridiculed. A man may do ridiculous things, but they don’t look ridiculous to the girl he does ’em for. That was one man in a hundred. He stopped eating just to please me. I’d be hardhearted and ungrateful if I didn’t feel kindly toward him. Could you do what he did?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I know,’ says I, seeing the point, ‘I’m condemned. I can’t help it. The brand of the consumer is upon my brow. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Eve settled that business for me when she made the dicker with the snake. I fell from the fire into the frying-pan. I guess I’m the Champion Feaster of the Universe.’ I spoke humble, and Mame mollified herself a little.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I know,’ says I, seeing the point, ‘I’m condemned. I can’t help it. The brand of the consumer is upon my brow. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Eve settled that business for me when she made the dicker with the snake. I fell from the fire into the frying-pan. I guess I’m the Champion Feaster of the Universe.’ I spoke humble, and Mame mollified herself a little.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Ed Collier and I are good friends,’ she said, ‘the same as me and you. I gave him the same answer I did you—no marrying for me. I liked to be with Ed and talk with him. There was something mighty pleasant to me in the thought that here was a man who never used a knife and fork, and all for my sake.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Wasn’t you in love with him?’ I asks, all injudicious. ‘Wasn’t there a deal on for you to become <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Curiosity?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“All of us do it sometimes. All of us get jostled out of the line of profitable talk now and then. Mame put on that little lemon glacé smile that runs between ice and sugar, and says, much too pleasant: ‘You’re short on credentials for asking that question, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Peters. Suppose you do a forty-nine day fast, just to give you ground to stand on, and then maybe I’ll answer it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Wasn’t you in love with him?’ I asks, all injudicious. ‘Wasn’t there a deal on for you to become <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Curiosity?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“All of us do it sometimes. All of us get jostled out of the line of profitable talk now and then. Mame put on that little lemon glacé smile that runs between ice and sugar, and says, much too pleasant: ‘You’re short on credentials for asking that question, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Peters. Suppose you do a forty-nine day fast, just to give you ground to stand on, and then maybe I’ll answer it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“So, even after Collier was kidnapped out of the way by the revolt of his appetite, my own prospects with Mame didn’t seem to be improved. And then business played out in Guthrie.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I had stayed too long there. The Brazilians I had sold commenced to show signs of wear, and the Kindler refused to light up right frequent on wet mornings. There is always a time, in my business, when the star of success says, ‘Move on to the next town.’ I was travelling by wagon at that time so as not to miss any of the small towns; so I hitched up a few days later and went down to tell Mame goodbye. I wasn’t abandoning the game; I intended running over to Oklahoma City and work it for a week or two. Then I was coming back to institute fresh proceedings against Mame.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What do I find at the Dugans’ but Mame all conspicuous in a blue travelling dress, with her little trunk at the door. It seems that sister Lottie Bell, who is a typewriter in Terre Haute, is going to be married next Thursday, and Mame is off for a week’s visit to be an accomplice at the ceremony. Mame is waiting for a freight wagon that is going to take her to Oklahoma, but I condemns the freight wagon with promptness and scorn, and offers to deliver the goods myself. Ma Dugan sees no reason why not, as <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Freighter wants pay for the job; so, thirty minutes later Mame and I pull out in my light spring wagon with white canvas cover, and head due south.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What do I find at the Dugans’ but Mame all conspicuous in a blue travelling dress, with her little trunk at the door. It seems that sister Lottie Bell, who is a typewriter in Terre Haute, is going to be married next Thursday, and Mame is off for a week’s visit to be an accomplice at the ceremony. Mame is waiting for a freight wagon that is going to take her to Oklahoma, but I condemns the freight wagon with promptness and scorn, and offers to deliver the goods myself. Ma Dugan sees no reason why not, as <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Freighter wants pay for the job; so, thirty minutes later Mame and I pull out in my light spring wagon with white canvas cover, and head due south.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That morning was of a praiseworthy sort. The breeze was lively, and smelled excellent of flowers and grass, and the little cottontail rabbits entertained themselves with skylarking across the road. My two Kentucky bays went for the horizon until it come sailing in so fast you wanted to dodge it like a clothesline. Mame was full of talk and rattled on like a kid about her old home and her school pranks and the things she liked and the hateful ways of those Johnson girls just across the street, ’way up in Indiana. Not a word was said about Ed Collier or victuals or such solemn subjects. About noon Mame looks and finds that the lunch she had put up in a basket had been left behind. I could have managed quite a collation, but Mame didn’t seem to be grieving over nothing to eat, so I made no lamentations. It was a sore subject with me, and I ruled provender in all its branches out of my conversation.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am minded to touch light on explanations how I came to lose the way. The road was dim and well grown with grass; and there was Mame by my side confiscating my intellects and attention. The excuses are good or they are not, as they may appear to you. But I lost it, and at dusk that afternoon, when we should have been in Oklahoma City, we were seesawing along the edge of nowhere in some undiscovered river bottom, and the rain was falling in large, wet bunches. Down there in the swamps we saw a little log house on a small knoll of high ground. The bottom grass and the chaparral and the lonesome timber crowded all around it. It seemed to be a melancholy little house, and you felt sorry for it. ’Twas that house for the night, the way I reasoned it. I explained to Mame, and she leaves it to me to decide. She doesn’t become galvanic and prosecuting, as most women would, but she says it’s all right; she knows I didn’t mean to do it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We found the house was deserted. It had two empty rooms. There was a little shed in the yard where beasts had once been kept. In a loft of it was a lot of old hay. I put my horses in there and gave them some of it, for which they looked at me sorrowful, expecting apologies. The rest of the hay I carried into the house by armfuls, with a view to accommodations. I also brought in the patent kindler and the Brazilians, neither of which are guaranteed against the action of water.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,12 +8,12 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="cupids-exile-number-two" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Cupid’s Exile Number Two</h2>
|
||||
<p>The United States of America, after looking over its stock of consular timber, selected <abbr>Mr.</abbr> John De Graffenreid Atwood, of Dalesburg, Alabama, for a successor to Willard Geddie, resigned.</p>
|
||||
<p>Without prejudice to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Atwood, it will have to be acknowledged that, in this instance, it was the man who sought the office. As with the self-banished Geddie, it was nothing less than the artful smiles of lovely woman that had driven Johnny Atwood to the desperate expedient of accepting office under a despised Federal Government so that he might go far, far away and never see again the false, fair face that had wrecked his young life. The consulship at Coralio seemed to offer a retreat sufficiently removed and romantic enough to inject the necessary drama into the pastoral scenes of Dalesburg life.</p>
|
||||
<p>The United States of America, after looking over its stock of consular timber, selected <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> John De Graffenreid Atwood, of Dalesburg, Alabama, for a successor to Willard Geddie, resigned.</p>
|
||||
<p>Without prejudice to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Atwood, it will have to be acknowledged that, in this instance, it was the man who sought the office. As with the self-banished Geddie, it was nothing less than the artful smiles of lovely woman that had driven Johnny Atwood to the desperate expedient of accepting office under a despised Federal Government so that he might go far, far away and never see again the false, fair face that had wrecked his young life. The consulship at Coralio seemed to offer a retreat sufficiently removed and romantic enough to inject the necessary drama into the pastoral scenes of Dalesburg life.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was while playing the part of Cupid’s exile that Johnny added his handiwork to the long list of casualties along the Spanish Main by his famous manipulation of the shoe market, and his unparalleled feat of elevating the most despised and useless weed in his own country from obscurity to be a valuable product in international commerce.</p>
|
||||
<p>The trouble began, as trouble often begins instead of ending, with a romance. In Dalesburg there was a man named Elijah Hemstetter, who kept a general store. His family consisted of one daughter called Rosine, a name that atoned much for “Hemstetter.” This young woman was possessed of plentiful attractions, so that the young men of the community were agitated in their bosoms. Among the more agitated was Johnny, the son of Judge Atwood, who lived in the big colonial mansion on the edge of Dalesburg.</p>
|
||||
<p>It would seem that the desirable Rosine should have been pleased to return the affection of an Atwood, a name honoured all over the state long before and since the war. It does seem that she should have gladly consented to have been led into that stately but rather empty colonial mansion. But not so. There was a cloud on the horizon, a threatening, cumulus cloud, in the shape of a lively and shrewd young farmer in the neighbourhood who dared to enter the lists as a rival to the highborn Atwood.</p>
|
||||
<p>One night Johnny propounded to Rosine a question that is considered of much importance by the young of the human species. The accessories were all there—moonlight, oleanders, magnolias, the mock-bird’s song. Whether or no the shadow of Pinkney Dawson, the prosperous young farmer, came between them on that occasion is not known; but Rosine’s answer was unfavourable. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> John De Graffenreid Atwood bowed till his hat touched the lawn grass, and went away with his head high, but with a sore wound in his pedigree and heart. A Hemstetter refuse an Atwood! Zounds!</p>
|
||||
<p>One night Johnny propounded to Rosine a question that is considered of much importance by the young of the human species. The accessories were all there—moonlight, oleanders, magnolias, the mock-bird’s song. Whether or no the shadow of Pinkney Dawson, the prosperous young farmer, came between them on that occasion is not known; but Rosine’s answer was unfavourable. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> John De Graffenreid Atwood bowed till his hat touched the lawn grass, and went away with his head high, but with a sore wound in his pedigree and heart. A Hemstetter refuse an Atwood! Zounds!</p>
|
||||
<p>Among other accidents of that year was a Democratic president. Judge Atwood was a warhorse of Democracy. Johnny persuaded him to set the wheels moving for some foreign appointment. He would go away—away. Perhaps in years to come Rosine would think how true, how faithful his love had been, and would drop a tear—maybe in the cream she would be skimming for Pink Dawson’s breakfast.</p>
|
||||
<p>The wheels of politics revolved; and Johnny was appointed consul to Coralio. Just before leaving he dropped in at Hemstetter’s to say goodbye. There was a queer, pinkish look about Rosine’s eyes; and had the two been alone, the United States might have had to cast about for another consul. But Pink Dawson was there, of course, talking about his 400-acre orchard, and the three-mile alfalfa tract, and the 200-acre pasture. So Johnny shook hands with Rosine as coolly as if he were only going to run up to Montgomery for a couple of days. They had the royal manner when they chose, those Atwoods.</p>
|
||||
<p>“If you happen to strike anything in the way of a good investment down there, Johnny,” said Pink Dawson, “just let me know, will you? I reckon I could lay my hands on a few extra thousands ’most any time for a profitable deal.”</p>
|
||||
@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Geddie came down to the consulate to explain the duties and workings of the office. He and Keogh tried to interest the new consul in their description of the work that his government expected him to perform.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s all right,” said Johnny from the hammock that he had set up as the official reclining place. “If anything turns up that has to be done I’ll let you fellows do it. You can’t expect a Democrat to work during his first term of holding office.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You might look over these headings,” suggested Geddie, “of the different lines of exports you will have to keep account of. The fruit is classified; and there are the valuable woods, coffee, rubber—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That last account sounds all right,” interrupted <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Atwood. “Sounds as if it could be stretched. I want to buy a new flag, a monkey, a guitar and a barrel of pineapples. Will that rubber account stretch over ’em?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That last account sounds all right,” interrupted <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Atwood. “Sounds as if it could be stretched. I want to buy a new flag, a monkey, a guitar and a barrel of pineapples. Will that rubber account stretch over ’em?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s merely statistics,” said Geddie, smiling. “The expense account is what you want. It is supposed to have a slight elasticity. The ‘stationery’ items are sometimes carelessly audited by the State Department.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“We’re wasting our time,” said Keogh. “This man was born to hold office. He penetrates to the root of the art at one step of his eagle eye. The true genius of government shows its hand in every word of his speech.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I didn’t take this job with any intention of working,” explained Johnny, lazily. “I wanted to go somewhere in the world where they didn’t talk about farms. There are none here, are there?”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
|
||||
<p>The failure of the art expedition did not stretch the cat-footed Keogh upon his back. The ups and downs of Fortune made smooth travelling for his nimble steps. His blue pencil stub was at work again before the smoke of the steamer on which White sailed had cleared away from the horizon. He had but to speak a word to Geddie to find his credit negotiable for whatever goods he wanted from the store of Brannigan & Company. On the same day on which White arrived in New York Keogh, at the rear of a train of five pack mules loaded with hardware and cutlery, set his face toward the grim, interior mountains. There the Indian tribes wash gold dust from the auriferous streams; and when a market is brought to them trading is brisk and <i xml:lang="es">muy bueno</i> in the Cordilleras.</p>
|
||||
<p>In Coralio Time folded his wings and paced wearily along his drowsy path. They who had most cheered the torpid hours were gone. Clancy had sailed on a Spanish barque for Colon, contemplating a cut across the isthmus and then a further voyage to end at Calao, where the fighting was said to be on. Geddie, whose quiet and genial nature had once served to mitigate the frequent dull reaction of lotus eating, was now a home-man, happy with his bright orchid, Paula, and never even dreaming of or regretting the unsolved, sealed and monogramed Bottle whose contents, now inconsiderable, were held safely in the keeping of the sea.</p>
|
||||
<p>Well may the Walrus, most discerning and eclectic of beasts, place sealing-wax midway on his programme of topics that fall pertinent and diverting upon the ear.</p>
|
||||
<p>Atwood was gone—he of the hospitable back porch and ingenuous cunning. <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Gregg, with his trepanning story smouldering within him, was a whiskered volcano, always showing signs of imminent eruption, and was not to be considered in the ranks of those who might contribute to the amelioration of ennui. The new consul’s note chimed with the sad sea waves and the violent tropical greens—he had not a bar of Scheherezade or of the Round Table in his lute. Goodwin was employed with large projects: what time he was loosed from them found him at his home, where he loved to be. Therefore it will be seen that there was a dearth of fellowship and entertainment among the foreign contingent of Coralio.</p>
|
||||
<p>Atwood was gone—he of the hospitable back porch and ingenuous cunning. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Gregg, with his trepanning story smouldering within him, was a whiskered volcano, always showing signs of imminent eruption, and was not to be considered in the ranks of those who might contribute to the amelioration of ennui. The new consul’s note chimed with the sad sea waves and the violent tropical greens—he had not a bar of Scheherezade or of the Round Table in his lute. Goodwin was employed with large projects: what time he was loosed from them found him at his home, where he loved to be. Therefore it will be seen that there was a dearth of fellowship and entertainment among the foreign contingent of Coralio.</p>
|
||||
<p>And then Dicky Maloney dropped down from the clouds upon the town, and amused it.</p>
|
||||
<p>Nobody knew where Dicky Maloney hailed from or how he reached Coralio. He appeared there one day; and that was all. He afterward said that he came on the fruit steamer <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Thor</i>; but an inspection of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Thor</i>’s passenger list of that date was found to be Maloneyless. Curiosity, however, soon perished; and Dicky took his place among the odd fish cast up by the Caribbean.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was an active, devil-may-care, rollicking fellow with an engaging gray eye, the most irresistible grin, a rather dark or much sunburned complexion, and a head of the fieriest red hair ever seen in that country. Speaking the Spanish language as well as he spoke English, and seeming always to have plenty of silver in his pockets, it was not long before he was a welcome companion whithersoever he went. He had an extreme fondness for <i xml:lang="es">vino blanco</i>, and gained the reputation of being able to drink more of it than any three men in town. Everybody called him “Dicky”; everybody cheered up at the sight of him—especially the natives, to whom his marvellous red hair and his free-and-easy style were a constant delight and envy. Wherever you went in the town you would soon see Dicky or hear his genial laugh, and find around him a group of admirers who appreciated him both for his good nature and the white wine he was always so ready to buy.</p>
|
||||
@ -26,13 +26,13 @@
|
||||
<p>That Dicky Maloney would, sooner or later, explore this field was a thing to be foreseen. There were few doors in Coralio into which his red head had not been poked.</p>
|
||||
<p>In an incredibly short space of time after his first sight of her he was there, seated close beside her rocking chair. There were no back-against-the-wall poses in Dicky’s theory of wooing. His plan of subjection was an attack at close range. To carry the fortress with one concentrated, ardent, eloquent, irresistible escalade—that was Dicky’s way.</p>
|
||||
<p>Pasa was descended from the proudest Spanish families in the country. Moreover, she had had unusual advantages. Two years in a New Orleans school had elevated her ambitions and fitted her for a fate above the ordinary maidens of her native land. And yet here she succumbed to the first red-haired scamp with a glib tongue and a charming smile that came along and courted her properly.</p>
|
||||
<p>Very soon Dicky took her to the little church on the corner of the plaza, and “<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maloney” was added to her string of distinguished names.</p>
|
||||
<p>Very soon Dicky took her to the little church on the corner of the plaza, and “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maloney” was added to her string of distinguished names.</p>
|
||||
<p>And it was her fate to sit, with her patient, saintly eyes and figure like a bisque Psyche, behind the sequestered counter of the little shop, while Dicky drank and philandered with his frivolous acquaintances.</p>
|
||||
<p>The women, with their naturally fine instinct, saw a chance for vivisection, and delicately taunted her with his habits. She turned upon them in a beautiful, steady blaze of sorrowful contempt.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You meat-cows,” she said, in her level, crystal-clear tones; “you know nothing of a man. Your men are <i xml:lang="es">maromeros</i>. They are fit only to roll cigarettes in the shade until the sun strikes and shrivels them up. They drone in your hammocks and you comb their hair and feed them with fresh fruit. My man is of no such blood. Let him drink of the wine. When he has taken sufficient of it to drown one of your <i xml:lang="es">flaccitos</i> he will come home to me more of a man than one thousand of your <i xml:lang="es">pobrecitos</i>. <em>My</em> hair he smooths and braids; to me he sings; he himself removes my <i xml:lang="es">zapatos</i>, and there, there, upon each instep leaves a kiss. He holds—Oh, you will never understand! Blind ones who have never known a <em>man</em>.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Sometimes mysterious things happened at night about Dicky’s shop. While the front of it was dark, in the little room back of it Dicky and a few of his friends would sit about a table carrying on some kind of very quiet <i xml:lang="es">negocios</i> until quite late. Finally he would let them out the front door very carefully, and go upstairs to his little saint. These visitors were generally conspirator-like men with dark clothes and hats. Of course, these dark doings were noticed after a while, and talked about.</p>
|
||||
<p>Dicky seemed to care nothing at all for the society of the alien residents of the town. He avoided Goodwin, and his skilful escape from the trepanning story of <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Gregg is still referred to, in Coralio, as a masterpiece of lightning diplomacy.</p>
|
||||
<p>Many letters arrived, addressed to “<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dicky Maloney,” or “Señor Dickee Maloney,” to the considerable pride of Pasa. That so many people should desire to write to him only confirmed her own suspicion that the light from his red head shone around the world. As to their contents she never felt curiosity. There was a wife for you!</p>
|
||||
<p>Dicky seemed to care nothing at all for the society of the alien residents of the town. He avoided Goodwin, and his skilful escape from the trepanning story of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Gregg is still referred to, in Coralio, as a masterpiece of lightning diplomacy.</p>
|
||||
<p>Many letters arrived, addressed to “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Dicky Maloney,” or “Señor Dickee Maloney,” to the considerable pride of Pasa. That so many people should desire to write to him only confirmed her own suspicion that the light from his red head shone around the world. As to their contents she never felt curiosity. There was a wife for you!</p>
|
||||
<p>The one mistake Dicky made in Coralio was to run out of money at the wrong time. Where his money came from was a puzzle, for the sales of his shop were next to nothing, but that source failed, and at a peculiarly unfortunate time. It was when the comandante, Don Señor el Coronel Encarnacion Rios, looked upon the little saint seated in the shop and felt his heart go pitapat.</p>
|
||||
<p>The comandante, who was versed in all the intricate arts of gallantry, first delicately hinted at his sentiments by donning his dress uniform and strutting up and down fiercely before her window. Pasa, glancing demurely with her saintly eyes, instantly perceived his resemblance to her parrot, Chichi, and was diverted to the extent of a smile. The comandante saw the smile, which was not intended for him. Convinced of an impression made, he entered the shop, confidently, and advanced to open compliment. Pasa froze; he pranced; she flamed royally; he was charmed to injudicious persistence; she commanded him to leave the shop; he tried to capture her hand—and Dicky entered, smiling broadly, full of white wine and the devil.</p>
|
||||
<p>He spent five minutes in punishing the comandante scientifically and carefully, so that the pain might be prolonged as far as possible. At the end of that time he pitched the rash wooer out the door upon the stones of the street, senseless.</p>
|
||||
@ -63,10 +63,10 @@
|
||||
<p>“Oh, heavens!” exclaimed the consul, hurriedly adjusting his spectacles. “Are you a Yale man, too? Were you in that crowd? I don’t seem to remember anyone with red—anyone named Maloney. Such a lot of college men seem to have misused their advantages. One of the best mathematicians of the class of ’91 is selling lottery tickets in Belize. A Cornell man dropped off here last month. He was second steward on a guano boat. I’ll write to the department if you like, Maloney. Or if there’s any tobacco, or newspa—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There’s nothing,” interrupted Dicky, shortly, “but this. You go tell the captain of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Catarina</i> that Dicky Maloney wants to see him as soon as he can conveniently come. Tell him where I am. Hurry. That’s all.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The consul, glad to be let off so easily, hurried away. The captain of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Catarina</i>, a stout man, Sicilian born, soon appeared, shoving, with little ceremony, through the guards to the jail door. The Vesuvius Fruit Company had a habit of doing things that way in Anchuria.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am exceedingly sorry—exceedingly sorry,” said the captain, “to see this occur. I place myself at your service, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Maloney. What you need shall be furnished. Whatever you say shall be done.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am exceedingly sorry—exceedingly sorry,” said the captain, “to see this occur. I place myself at your service, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Maloney. What you need shall be furnished. Whatever you say shall be done.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Dicky looked at him unsmilingly. His red hair could not detract from his attitude of severe dignity as he stood, tall and calm, with his now grim mouth forming a horizontal line.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Captain De Lucco, I believe I still have funds in the hands of your company—ample and personal funds. I ordered a remittance last week. The money has not arrived. You know what is needed in this game. Money and money and more money. Why has it not been sent?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“By the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Cristobal</i>,” replied De Lucco, gesticulating, “it was despatched. Where is the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Cristobal</i>? Off Cape Antonio I spoke her with a broken shaft. A tramp coaster was towing her back to New Orleans. I brought money ashore thinking your need for it might not withstand delay. In this envelope is one thousand dollars. There is more if you need it, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Maloney.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“By the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Cristobal</i>,” replied De Lucco, gesticulating, “it was despatched. Where is the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Cristobal</i>? Off Cape Antonio I spoke her with a broken shaft. A tramp coaster was towing her back to New Orleans. I brought money ashore thinking your need for it might not withstand delay. In this envelope is one thousand dollars. There is more if you need it, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Maloney.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“For the present it will suffice,” said Dicky, softening as he crinkled the envelope and looked down at the half-inch thickness of smooth, dingy bills.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The long green!” he said, gently, with a new reverence in his gaze. “Is there anything it will not buy, Captain?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I had three friends,” replied De Lucco, who was a bit of a philosopher, “who had money. One of them speculated in stocks and made ten million; another is in heaven, and the third married a poor girl whom he loved.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -10,24 +10,24 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Dougherty’s Eye-Opener</h2>
|
||||
<p>Big Jim Dougherty was a sport. He belonged to that race of men. In Manhattan it is a distinct race. They are the Caribs of the North—strong, artful, self-sufficient, clannish, honorable within the laws of their race, holding in lenient contempt neighboring tribes who bow to the measure of Society’s tapeline. I refer, of course, to the titled nobility of sportdom. There is a class which bears as a qualifying adjective the substantive belonging to a wind instrument made of a cheap and base metal. But the tin mines of Cornwall never produced the material for manufacturing descriptive nomenclature for “Big Jim” Dougherty.</p>
|
||||
<p>The habitat of the sport is the lobby or the outside corner of certain hotels and combination restaurants and cafés. They are mostly men of different sizes, running from small to large; but they are unanimous in the possession of a recently shaven, blue-black cheek and chin and dark overcoats (in season) with black velvet collars.</p>
|
||||
<p>Of the domestic life of the sport little is known. It has been said that Cupid and Hymen sometimes take a hand in the game and copper the queen of hearts to lose. Daring theorists have averred—not content with simply saying—that a sport often contracts a spouse, and even incurs descendants. Sometimes he sits in the game of politics; and then at chowder picnics there is a revelation of a <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sport and little Sports in glazed hats with tin pails.</p>
|
||||
<p>Of the domestic life of the sport little is known. It has been said that Cupid and Hymen sometimes take a hand in the game and copper the queen of hearts to lose. Daring theorists have averred—not content with simply saying—that a sport often contracts a spouse, and even incurs descendants. Sometimes he sits in the game of politics; and then at chowder picnics there is a revelation of a <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Sport and little Sports in glazed hats with tin pails.</p>
|
||||
<p>But mostly the sport is Oriental. He believes his women-folk should not be too patent. Somewhere behind grilles or flower-ornamented fire escapes they await him. There, no doubt, they tread on rugs from Teheran and are diverted by the bulbul and play upon the dulcimer and feed upon sweetmeats. But away from his home the sport is an integer. He does not, as men of other races in Manhattan do, become the convoy in his unoccupied hours of fluttering laces and high heels that tick off delectably the happy seconds of the evening parade. He herds with his own race at corners, and delivers a commentary in his Carib lingo upon the passing show.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Big Jim” Dougherty had a wife, but he did not wear a button portrait of her upon his lapel. He had a home in one of those brownstone, iron-railed streets on the west side that look like a recently excavated bowling alley of Pompeii.</p>
|
||||
<p>To this home of his <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dougherty repaired each night when the hour was so late as to promise no further diversion in the arch domains of sport. By that time the occupant of the monogamistic harem would be in dreamland, the bulbul silenced and the hour propitious for slumber.</p>
|
||||
<p>To this home of his <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Dougherty repaired each night when the hour was so late as to promise no further diversion in the arch domains of sport. By that time the occupant of the monogamistic harem would be in dreamland, the bulbul silenced and the hour propitious for slumber.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Big Jim” always arose at twelve, meridian, for breakfast, and soon afterward he would return to the rendezvous of his “crowd.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He was always vaguely conscious that there was a <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Dougherty. He would have received without denial the charge that the quiet, neat, comfortable little woman across the table at home was his wife. In fact, he remembered pretty well that they had been married for nearly four years. She would often tell him about the cute tricks of Spot, the canary, and the light-haired lady that lived in the window of the flat across the street.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was always vaguely conscious that there was a <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Dougherty. He would have received without denial the charge that the quiet, neat, comfortable little woman across the table at home was his wife. In fact, he remembered pretty well that they had been married for nearly four years. She would often tell him about the cute tricks of Spot, the canary, and the light-haired lady that lived in the window of the flat across the street.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Big Jim” Dougherty even listened to this conversation of hers sometimes. He knew that she would have a nice dinner ready for him every evening at seven when he came for it. She sometimes went to matinées, and she had a talking machine with six dozen records. Once when her Uncle Amos blew in on a wind from upstate, she went with him to the Eden Musée. Surely these things were diversions enough for any woman.</p>
|
||||
<p>One afternoon <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dougherty finished his breakfast, put on his hat and got away fairly for the door. When his hand was on the knob be heard his wife’s voice.</p>
|
||||
<p>One afternoon <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Dougherty finished his breakfast, put on his hat and got away fairly for the door. When his hand was on the knob be heard his wife’s voice.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jim,” she said, firmly, “I wish you would take me out to dinner this evening. It has been three years since you have been outside the door with me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Big Jim” was astounded. She had never asked anything like this before. It had the flavour of a totally new proposition. But he was a game sport.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” he said. “You be ready when I come at seven. None of this ‘wait two minutes till I primp an hour or two’ kind of business, now, Dele.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll be ready,” said his wife, calmly.</p>
|
||||
<p>At seven she descended the stone steps in the Pompeian bowling alley at the side of “Big Jim” Dougherty. She wore a dinner gown made of a stuff that the spiders must have woven, and of a color that a twilight sky must have contributed. A light coat with many admirably unnecessary capes and adorably inutile ribbons floated downward from her shoulders. Fine feathers do make fine birds; and the only reproach in the saying is for the man who refuses to give up his earnings to the ostrich-tip industry.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Big Jim” Dougherty was troubled. There was a being at his side whom he did not know. He thought of the sober-hued plumage that this bird of paradise was accustomed to wear in her cage, and this winged revelation puzzled him. In some way she reminded him of the Delia Cullen that he had married four years before. Shyly and rather awkwardly he stalked at her right hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“After dinner I’ll take you back home, Dele,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dougherty, “and then I’ll drop back up to Seltzer’s with the boys. You can have swell chuck tonight if you want it. I made a winning on Anaconda yesterday; so you can go as far as you like.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dougherty had intended to make the outing with his unwonted wife an inconspicuous one. Uxoriousness was a weakness that the precepts of the Caribs did not countenance. If any of his friends of the track, the billiard cloth or the square circle had wives they had never complained of the fact in public. There were a number of <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</span> places on the cross streets near the broad and shining way; and to one of these he had purposed to escort her, so that the bushel might not be removed from the light of his domesticity.</p>
|
||||
<p>But while on the way <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dougherty altered those intentions. He had been casting stealthy glances at his attractive companion and he was seized with the conviction that she was no selling plater. He resolved to parade with his wife past Seltzer’s café, where at this time a number of his tribe would be gathered to view the daily evening procession. Yes; and he would take her to dine at Hoogley’s, the swellest slow-lunch warehouse on the line, he said to himself.</p>
|
||||
<p>The congregation of smooth-faced tribal gentlemen were on watch at Seltzer’s. As <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dougherty and his reorganized Delia passed they stared, momentarily petrified, and then removed their hats—a performance as unusual to them as was the astonishing innovation presented to their gaze by “Big Jim.” On the latter gentleman’s impassive face there appeared a slight flicker of triumph—a faint flicker, no more to be observed than the expression called there by the draft of little casino to a four-card spade flush.</p>
|
||||
<p>“After dinner I’ll take you back home, Dele,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Dougherty, “and then I’ll drop back up to Seltzer’s with the boys. You can have swell chuck tonight if you want it. I made a winning on Anaconda yesterday; so you can go as far as you like.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Dougherty had intended to make the outing with his unwonted wife an inconspicuous one. Uxoriousness was a weakness that the precepts of the Caribs did not countenance. If any of his friends of the track, the billiard cloth or the square circle had wives they had never complained of the fact in public. There were a number of <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</span> places on the cross streets near the broad and shining way; and to one of these he had purposed to escort her, so that the bushel might not be removed from the light of his domesticity.</p>
|
||||
<p>But while on the way <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Dougherty altered those intentions. He had been casting stealthy glances at his attractive companion and he was seized with the conviction that she was no selling plater. He resolved to parade with his wife past Seltzer’s café, where at this time a number of his tribe would be gathered to view the daily evening procession. Yes; and he would take her to dine at Hoogley’s, the swellest slow-lunch warehouse on the line, he said to himself.</p>
|
||||
<p>The congregation of smooth-faced tribal gentlemen were on watch at Seltzer’s. As <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Dougherty and his reorganized Delia passed they stared, momentarily petrified, and then removed their hats—a performance as unusual to them as was the astonishing innovation presented to their gaze by “Big Jim.” On the latter gentleman’s impassive face there appeared a slight flicker of triumph—a faint flicker, no more to be observed than the expression called there by the draft of little casino to a four-card spade flush.</p>
|
||||
<p>Hoogley’s was animated. Electric lights shone as, indeed, they were expected to do. And the napery, the glassware and the flowers also meritoriously performed the spectacular duties required of them. The guests were numerous, well-dressed and gay.</p>
|
||||
<p>A waiter—not necessarily obsequious—conducted “Big Jim” Dougherty and his wife to a table.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Play that menu straight across for what you like, Dele,” said “Big Jim.” “It’s you for a trough of the gilded oats tonight. It strikes me that maybe we’ve been sticking too fast to home fodder.”</p>
|
||||
@ -35,12 +35,12 @@
|
||||
<p>She was beaming with the innocent excitement that woman derives from the exercise of her gregariousness. She was talking to him about a hundred things with animation and delight. And as the meal progressed her cheeks, colorless from a life indoors, took on a delicate flush. “Big Jim” looked around the room and saw that none of the women there had her charm. And then he thought of the three years she had suffered immurement, uncomplaining, and a flush of shame warmed him, for he carried fair play as an item in his creed.</p>
|
||||
<p>But when the Honorable Patrick Corrigan, leader in Dougherty’s district and a friend of his, saw them and came over to the table, matters got to the three-quarter stretch. The Honorable Patrick was a gallant man, both in deeds and words. As for the Blarney stone, his previous actions toward it must have been pronounced. Heavy damages for breach of promise could surely have been obtained had the Blarney stone seen fit to sue the Honorable Patrick.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jimmy, old man!” he called; he clapped Dougherty on the back; he shone like a midday sun upon Delia.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Honorable <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Corrigan—<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Dougherty,” said “Big Jim.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Honorable <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Corrigan—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Dougherty,” said “Big Jim.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Honorable Patrick became a fountain of entertainment and admiration. The waiter had to fetch a third chair for him; he made another at the table, and the wineglasses were refilled.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You selfish old rascal!” he exclaimed, shaking an arch finger at “Big Jim,” “to have kept <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Dougherty a secret from us.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You selfish old rascal!” he exclaimed, shaking an arch finger at “Big Jim,” “to have kept <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Dougherty a secret from us.”</p>
|
||||
<p>And then “Big Jim” Dougherty, who was no talker, sat dumb, and saw the wife who had dined every evening for three years at home, blossom like a fairy flower. Quick, witty, charming, full of light and ready talk, she received the experienced attack of the Honorable Patrick on the field of repartee and surprised, vanquished, delighted him. She unfolded her long-closed petals and around her the room became a garden. They tried to include “Big Jim” in the conversation, but he was without a vocabulary.</p>
|
||||
<p>And then a stray bunch of politicians and good fellows who lived for sport came into the room. They saw “Big Jim” and the leader, and over they came and were made acquainted with <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Dougherty. And in a few minutes she was holding a salon. Half a dozen men surrounded her, courtiers all, and six found her capable of charming. “Big Jim” sat, grim, and kept saying to himself: “Three years, three years!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The dinner came to an end. The Honorable Patrick reached for <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Dougherty’s cloak; but that was a matter of action instead of words, and Dougherty’s big hand got it first by two seconds.</p>
|
||||
<p>And then a stray bunch of politicians and good fellows who lived for sport came into the room. They saw “Big Jim” and the leader, and over they came and were made acquainted with <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Dougherty. And in a few minutes she was holding a salon. Half a dozen men surrounded her, courtiers all, and six found her capable of charming. “Big Jim” sat, grim, and kept saying to himself: “Three years, three years!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The dinner came to an end. The Honorable Patrick reached for <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Dougherty’s cloak; but that was a matter of action instead of words, and Dougherty’s big hand got it first by two seconds.</p>
|
||||
<p>While the farewells were being said at the door the Honorable Patrick smote Dougherty mightily between the shoulders.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jimmy, me boy,” he declared, in a giant whisper, “the madam is a jewel of the first water. Ye’re a lucky dog.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Big Jim” walked homeward with his wife. She seemed quite as pleased with the lights and show windows in the streets as with the admiration of the men in Hoogley’s. As they passed Seltzer’s they heard the sound of many voices in the café. The boys would be starting the drinks around now and discussing past performances.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -10,21 +10,21 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Elsie in New York</h2>
|
||||
<p>No, bumptious reader, this story is not a continuation of the Elsie series. But if your Elsie had lived over here in our big city there might have been a chapter in her books not very different from this.</p>
|
||||
<p>Especially for the vagrant feet of youth are the roads of Manhattan beset “with pitfall and with gin.” But the civic guardians of the young have made themselves acquainted with the snares of the wicked, and most of the dangerous paths are patrolled by their agents, who seek to turn straying ones away from the peril that menaces them. And this will tell you how they guided my Elsie safely through all peril to the goal that she was seeking.</p>
|
||||
<p>Elsie’s father had been a cutter for Fox & Otter, cloaks and furs, on lower Broadway. He was an old man, with a slow and limping gait, so a pothunter of a newly licensed chauffeur ran him down one day when livelier game was scarce. They took the old man home, where he lay on his bed for a year and then died, leaving $2.50 in cash and a letter from <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter offering to do anything he could to help his faithful old employee. The old cutter regarded this letter as a valuable legacy to his daughter, and he put it into her hands with pride as the shears of the dread Cleaner and Repairer snipped off his thread of life.</p>
|
||||
<p>That was the landlord’s cue; and forth he came and did his part in the great eviction scene. There was no snowstorm ready for Elsie to steal out into, drawing her little red woollen shawl about her shoulders, but she went out, regardless of the unities. And as for the red shawl—back to Blaney with it! Elsie’s fall tan coat was cheap, but it had the style and fit of the best at Fox & Otter’s. And her lucky stars had given her good looks, and eyes as blue and innocent as the new shade of note paper, and she had $1 left of the $2.50. And the letter from <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter. Keep your eye on the letter from <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter. That is the clue. I desire that everything be made plain as we go. Detective stories are so plentiful now that they do not sell.</p>
|
||||
<p>And so we find Elsie, thus equipped, starting out in the world to seek her fortune. One trouble about the letter from <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter was that it did not bear the new address of the firm, which had moved about a month before. But Elsie thought she could find it. She had heard that policemen, when politely addressed, or thumbscrewed by an investigation committee, will give up information and addresses. So she boarded a downtown car at One Hundred and Seventy-seventh Street and rode south to Forty-second, which she thought must surely be the end of the island. There she stood against the wall undecided, for the city’s roar and dash was new to her. Up where she had lived was rural New York, so far out that the milkmen awaken you in the morning by the squeaking of pumps instead of the rattling of cans.</p>
|
||||
<p>Elsie’s father had been a cutter for Fox & Otter, cloaks and furs, on lower Broadway. He was an old man, with a slow and limping gait, so a pothunter of a newly licensed chauffeur ran him down one day when livelier game was scarce. They took the old man home, where he lay on his bed for a year and then died, leaving $2.50 in cash and a letter from <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter offering to do anything he could to help his faithful old employee. The old cutter regarded this letter as a valuable legacy to his daughter, and he put it into her hands with pride as the shears of the dread Cleaner and Repairer snipped off his thread of life.</p>
|
||||
<p>That was the landlord’s cue; and forth he came and did his part in the great eviction scene. There was no snowstorm ready for Elsie to steal out into, drawing her little red woollen shawl about her shoulders, but she went out, regardless of the unities. And as for the red shawl—back to Blaney with it! Elsie’s fall tan coat was cheap, but it had the style and fit of the best at Fox & Otter’s. And her lucky stars had given her good looks, and eyes as blue and innocent as the new shade of note paper, and she had $1 left of the $2.50. And the letter from <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter. Keep your eye on the letter from <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter. That is the clue. I desire that everything be made plain as we go. Detective stories are so plentiful now that they do not sell.</p>
|
||||
<p>And so we find Elsie, thus equipped, starting out in the world to seek her fortune. One trouble about the letter from <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter was that it did not bear the new address of the firm, which had moved about a month before. But Elsie thought she could find it. She had heard that policemen, when politely addressed, or thumbscrewed by an investigation committee, will give up information and addresses. So she boarded a downtown car at One Hundred and Seventy-seventh Street and rode south to Forty-second, which she thought must surely be the end of the island. There she stood against the wall undecided, for the city’s roar and dash was new to her. Up where she had lived was rural New York, so far out that the milkmen awaken you in the morning by the squeaking of pumps instead of the rattling of cans.</p>
|
||||
<p>A kind-faced, sunburned young man in a soft-brimmed hat went past Elsie into the Grand Central Depot. That was Hank Ross, of the Sunflower Ranch, in Idaho, on his way home from a visit to the East. Hank’s heart was heavy, for the Sunflower Ranch was a lonesome place, lacking the presence of a woman. He had hoped to find one during his visit who would congenially share his prosperity and home, but the girls of Gotham had not pleased his fancy. But, as he passed in, he noted, with a jumping of his pulses, the sweet, ingenuous face of Elsie and her pose of doubt and loneliness. With true and honest Western impulse he said to himself that here was his mate. He could love her, he knew; and he would surround her with so much comfort, and cherish her so carefully that she would be happy, and make two sunflowers grow on the ranch where there grew but one before.</p>
|
||||
<p>Hank turned and went back to her. Backed by his never before questioned honesty of purpose, he approached the girl and removed his soft-brimmed hat. Elsie had but time to sum up his handsome frank face with one shy look of modest admiration when a burly cop hurled himself upon the ranchman, seized him by the collar and backed him against the wall. Two blocks away a burglar was coming out of an apartment-house with a bag of silverware on his shoulder; but that is neither here nor there.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Carry on yez mashin’ tricks right before me eyes, will yez?” shouted the cop. “I’ll teach yez to speak to ladies on me beat that ye’re not acquainted with. Come along.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Elsie turned away with a sigh as the ranchman was dragged away. She had liked the effect of his light blue eyes against his tanned complexion. She walked southward, thinking herself already in the district where her father used to work, and hoping to find someone who could direct her to the firm of Fox & Otter.</p>
|
||||
<p>But did she want to find <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter? She had inherited much of the old cutter’s independence. How much better it would be if she could find work and support herself without calling on him for aid!</p>
|
||||
<p>But did she want to find <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter? She had inherited much of the old cutter’s independence. How much better it would be if she could find work and support herself without calling on him for aid!</p>
|
||||
<p>Elsie saw a sign “Employment Agency” and went in. Many girls were sitting against the wall in chairs. Several well-dressed ladies were looking them over. One white-haired, kind-faced old lady in rustling black silk hurried up to Elsie.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My dear,” she said in a sweet, gentle voice, “are you looking for a position? I like your face and appearance so much. I want a young woman who will be half maid and half companion to me. You will have a good home and I will pay you $30 a month.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Before Elsie could stammer forth her gratified acceptance, a young woman with gold glasses on her bony nose and her hands in her jacket pockets seized her arm and drew her aside.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am Miss Ticklebaum,” said she, “of the Association for the Prevention of Jobs Being Put Up on Working Girls Looking for Jobs. We prevented forty-seven girls from securing positions last week. I am here to protect you. Beware of anyone who offers you a job. How do you know that this woman does not want to make you work as a breaker-boy in a coal mine or murder you to get your teeth? If you accept work of any kind without permission of our association you will be arrested by one of our agents.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But what am I to do?” asked Elsie. “I have no home or money. I must do something. Why am I not allowed to accept this kind lady’s offer?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I do not know,” said Miss Ticklebaum. “That is the affair of our Committee on the Abolishment of Employers. It is my duty simply to see that you do not get work. You will give me your name and address and report to our secretary every Thursday. We have 600 girls on the waiting list who will in time be allowed to accept positions as vacancies occur on our roll of Qualified Employers, which now comprises twenty-seven names. There is prayer, music and lemonade in our chapel the third Sunday of every month.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Elsie hurried away after thanking Miss Ticklebaum for her timely warning and advice. After all, it seemed that she must try to find <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter.</p>
|
||||
<p>Elsie hurried away after thanking Miss Ticklebaum for her timely warning and advice. After all, it seemed that she must try to find <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter.</p>
|
||||
<p>But after walking a few blocks she saw a sign, “Cashier wanted,” in the window of a confectionery store. In she went and applied for the place, after casting a quick glance over her shoulder to assure herself that the job-preventer was not on her trail.</p>
|
||||
<p>The proprietor of the confectionery was a benevolent old man with a peppermint flavor, who decided, after questioning Elsie pretty closely, that she was the very girl he wanted. Her services were needed at once, so Elsie, with a thankful heart, drew off her tan coat and prepared to mount the cashier’s stool.</p>
|
||||
<p>But before she could do so a gaunt lady wearing steel spectacles and black mittens stood before her, with a long finger pointing, and exclaimed: “Young woman, hesitate!”</p>
|
||||
@ -36,7 +36,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Decline the position,” said the lady, “and come with me. I will tell you what to do.”</p>
|
||||
<p>After Elsie had told the confectioner that she had changed her mind about the cashiership she put on her coat and followed the lady to the sidewalk, where awaited an elegant victoria.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Seek some other work,” said the black-and-steel lady, “and assist in crushing the hydra-headed demon rum.” And she got into the victoria and drove away.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I guess that puts it up to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter again,” said Elsie, ruefully, turning down the street. “And I’m sorry, too, for I’d much rather make my way without help.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I guess that puts it up to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter again,” said Elsie, ruefully, turning down the street. “And I’m sorry, too, for I’d much rather make my way without help.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Near Fourteenth Street Elsie saw a placard tacked on the side of a doorway that read: “Fifty girls, neat sewers, wanted immediately on theatrical costumes. Good pay.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She was about to enter, when a solemn man, dressed all in black, laid his hand on her arm.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My dear girl,” he said, “I entreat you not to enter that dressing-room of the devil.”</p>
|
||||
@ -53,16 +53,16 @@
|
||||
<p>“Now don’t do it,” said the girl. “I’m chairman of our Scab Committee. There’s 400 of us girls locked out just because we demanded 50 cents a week raise in wages, and ice water, and for the foreman to shave off his mustache. You’re too nice a looking girl to be a scab. Wouldn’t you please help us along by trying to find a job somewhere else, or would you’se rather have your face pushed in?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll try somewhere else,” said Elsie.</p>
|
||||
<p>She walked aimlessly eastward on Broadway, and there her heart leaped to see the sign, “Fox & Otter,” stretching entirely across the front of a tall building. It was as though an unseen guide had led her to it through the byways of her fruitless search for work.</p>
|
||||
<p>She hurried into the store and sent in to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter by a clerk her name and the letter he had written her father. She was shown directly into his private office.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter arose from his desk as Elsie entered and took both hands with a hearty smile of welcome. He was a slightly corpulent man of nearly middle age, a little bald, gold spectacled, polite, well dressed, radiating.</p>
|
||||
<p>She hurried into the store and sent in to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter by a clerk her name and the letter he had written her father. She was shown directly into his private office.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter arose from his desk as Elsie entered and took both hands with a hearty smile of welcome. He was a slightly corpulent man of nearly middle age, a little bald, gold spectacled, polite, well dressed, radiating.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, well, and so this is Beatty’s little daughter! Your father was one of our most efficient and valued employees. He left nothing? Well, well. I hope we have not forgotten his faithful services. I am sure there is a vacancy now among our models. Oh, it is easy work—nothing easier.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter struck a bell. A long-nosed clerk thrust a portion of himself inside the door.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Send Miss Hawkins in,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter. Miss Hawkins came.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Miss Hawkins,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter, “bring for Miss Beatty to try on one of those Russian sable coats and—let’s see—one of those latest model black tulle hats with white tips.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter struck a bell. A long-nosed clerk thrust a portion of himself inside the door.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Send Miss Hawkins in,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter. Miss Hawkins came.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Miss Hawkins,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter, “bring for Miss Beatty to try on one of those Russian sable coats and—let’s see—one of those latest model black tulle hats with white tips.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Elsie stood before the full-length mirror with pink cheeks and quick breath. Her eyes shone like faint stars. She was beautiful. Alas! she was beautiful.</p>
|
||||
<p>I wish I could stop this story here. Confound it! I will. No; it’s got to run it out. I didn’t make it up. I’m just repeating it.</p>
|
||||
<p>I’d like to throw bouquets at the wise cop, and the lady who rescues Girls from Jobs, and the prohibitionist who is trying to crush brandy balls, and the sky pilot who objects to costumes for stage people (there are others), and all the thousands of good people who are at work protecting young people from the pitfalls of a great city; and then wind up by pointing out how they were the means of Elsie reaching her father’s benefactor and her kind friend and rescuer from poverty. This would make a fine Elsie story of the old sort. I’d like to do this; but there’s just a word or two to follow.</p>
|
||||
<p>While Elsie was admiring herself in the mirror, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter went to the telephone booth and called up some number. Don’t ask me what it was.</p>
|
||||
<p>While Elsie was admiring herself in the mirror, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Otter went to the telephone booth and called up some number. Don’t ask me what it was.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oscar,” said he, “I want you to reserve the same table for me this evening. … What? Why, the one in the Moorish room to the left of the shrubbery. … Yes; two. … Yes, the usual brand; and the ’85 Johannisburger with the roast. If it isn’t the right temperature I’ll break your neck. … No; not her … No, indeed … A new one—a peacherino, Oscar, a peacherino!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Tired and tiresome reader, I will conclude, if you please, with a paraphrase of a few words that you will remember were written by him—by him of Gad’s Hill, before whom, if you doff not your hat, you shall stand with a covered pumpkin—aye, sir, a pumpkin.</p>
|
||||
<p>Lost, Your Excellency. Lost Associations and Societies. Lost, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Lost, Reformers and Lawmakers, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts, but with the reverence of money in your souls. And lost thus around us every day.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
|
||||
<p>An estate famous in Texas legal history. It took many, many years for adjustment and a large part of the property was, of course, consumed as expenses of litigation. <a href="fickle-fortune-or-how-gladys-hustled.xhtml#noteref-1" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li id="note-2" epub:type="endnote">
|
||||
<p>The methods of the <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Sam Jones, who was the Billy Sunday of his time, were frequently the subject of <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">O.</abbr> Henry’s satire. <a href="an-unsuccessful-experiment.xhtml#noteref-2" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
|
||||
<p>The methods of the <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Rev.</abbr> Sam Jones, who was the Billy Sunday of his time, were frequently the subject of <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">O.</abbr> Henry’s satire. <a href="an-unsuccessful-experiment.xhtml#noteref-2" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li id="note-3" epub:type="endnote">
|
||||
<p>See advertising column, “Where to Dine Well,” in the daily newspapers. <a href="a-dinner-at.xhtml#noteref-3" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
|
||||
@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
|
||||
<p>See advertising column, “Where to Dine Well,” in the daily newspapers. <a href="a-dinner-at.xhtml#noteref-11" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li id="note-12" epub:type="endnote">
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Vesey afterward explained that the logical journalistic complement of the word “unfortunate” was once the word “victim.” But, since the automobile became so popular, the correct following word is now “pedestrians.” Of course, in Calloway’s code it meant infantry. <a href="calloways-code.xhtml#noteref-12" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Vesey afterward explained that the logical journalistic complement of the word “unfortunate” was once the word “victim.” But, since the automobile became so popular, the correct following word is now “pedestrians.” Of course, in Calloway’s code it meant infantry. <a href="calloways-code.xhtml#noteref-12" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
</ol>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -13,16 +13,16 @@
|
||||
<p>Medora took heart, a cheap hall bedroom and two art lessons a week from Professor Angelini, a retired barber who had studied his profession in a Harlem dancing academy. There was no one to set her right, for here in the big city they do it unto all of us. How many of us are badly shaved daily and taught the two-step imperfectly by ex-pupils of Bastien Le Page and Gérôme? The most pathetic sight in New York—except the manners of the rush-hour crowds—is the dreary march of the hopeless army of Mediocrity. Here Art is no benignant goddess, but a Circe who turns her wooers into mewing Toms and Tabbies who linger about the doorsteps of her abode, unmindful of the flying brickbats and bootjacks of the critics. Some of us creep back to our native villages to the skim-milk of “I told you so”; but most of us prefer to remain in the cold courtyard of our mistress’s temple, snatching the scraps that fall from her divine <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</span>. But some of us grow weary at last of the fruitless service. And then there are two fates open to us. We can get a job driving a grocer’s wagon, or we can get swallowed up in the Vortex of Bohemia. The latter sounds good; but the former really pans out better. For, when the grocer pays us off we can rent a dress suit and—the capitalized system of humor describes it best—Get Bohemia On the Run.</p>
|
||||
<p>Miss Medora chose the Vortex and thereby furnishes us with our little story.</p>
|
||||
<p>Professor Angelini praised her sketches excessively. Once when she had made a neat study of a horse-chestnut tree in the park he declared she would become a second Rosa Bonheur. Again—a great artist has his moods—he would say cruel and cutting things. For example, Medora had spent an afternoon patiently sketching the statue and the architecture at Columbus Circle. Tossing it aside with a sneer, the professor informed her that Giotto had once drawn a perfect circle with one sweep of his hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day it rained, the weekly remittance from Harmony was overdue, Medora had a headache, the professor had tried to borrow two dollars from her, her art dealer had sent back all her watercolors unsold, and—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Binkley asked her out to dinner.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Binkley was the gay boy of the boardinghouse. He was forty-nine, and owned a fishstall in a downtown market. But after six o’clock he wore an evening suit and whooped things up connected with the beaux arts. The young men said he was an “Indian.” He was supposed to be an accomplished <span xml:lang="fr">habitué</span> of the inner circles of Bohemia. It was no secret that he had once loaned $10 to a young man who had had a drawing printed in <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Puck</i>. Often has one thus obtained his entrée into the charmed circle, while the other obtained both his entrée and roast.</p>
|
||||
<p>The other boarders enviously regarded Medora as she left at <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Binkley’s side at nine o’clock. She was as sweet as a cluster of dried autumn grasses in her pale blue—oh—er—that very thin stuff—in her pale blue Comstockized silk waist and box-pleated voile skirt, with a soft pink glow on her thin cheeks and the tiniest bit of rouge powder on her face, with her handkerchief and room key in her brown walrus, pebble-grain handbag.</p>
|
||||
<p>And <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Binkley looked imposing and dashing with his red face and gray mustache, and his tight dress coat, that made the back of his neck roll up just like a successful novelist’s.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day it rained, the weekly remittance from Harmony was overdue, Medora had a headache, the professor had tried to borrow two dollars from her, her art dealer had sent back all her watercolors unsold, and—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Binkley asked her out to dinner.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Binkley was the gay boy of the boardinghouse. He was forty-nine, and owned a fishstall in a downtown market. But after six o’clock he wore an evening suit and whooped things up connected with the beaux arts. The young men said he was an “Indian.” He was supposed to be an accomplished <span xml:lang="fr">habitué</span> of the inner circles of Bohemia. It was no secret that he had once loaned $10 to a young man who had had a drawing printed in <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Puck</i>. Often has one thus obtained his entrée into the charmed circle, while the other obtained both his entrée and roast.</p>
|
||||
<p>The other boarders enviously regarded Medora as she left at <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Binkley’s side at nine o’clock. She was as sweet as a cluster of dried autumn grasses in her pale blue—oh—er—that very thin stuff—in her pale blue Comstockized silk waist and box-pleated voile skirt, with a soft pink glow on her thin cheeks and the tiniest bit of rouge powder on her face, with her handkerchief and room key in her brown walrus, pebble-grain handbag.</p>
|
||||
<p>And <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Binkley looked imposing and dashing with his red face and gray mustache, and his tight dress coat, that made the back of his neck roll up just like a successful novelist’s.</p>
|
||||
<p>They drove in a cab to the Café Terence, just off the most glittering part of Broadway, which, as everyone knows, is one of the most popular and widely patronized, jealously exclusive Bohemian resorts in the city.</p>
|
||||
<p>Down between the rows of little tables tripped Medora, of the Green Mountains, after her escort. Thrice in a lifetime may woman walk upon clouds—once when she trippeth to the altar, once when she first enters Bohemian halls, the last when she marches back across her first garden with the dead hen of her neighbor in her hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>There was a table set, with three or four about it. A waiter buzzed around it like a bee, and silver and glass shone upon it. And, preliminary to the meal, as the prehistoric granite strata heralded the protozoa, the bread of Gaul, compounded after the formula of the recipe for the eternal hills, was there set forth to the hand and tooth of a long-suffering city, while the gods lay beside their nectar and homemade biscuits and smiled, and the dentists leaped for joy in their gold-leafy dens.</p>
|
||||
<p>The eye of Binkley fixed a young man at his table with the Bohemian gleam, which is a compound of the look of the Basilisk, the shine of a bubble of Würzburger, the inspiration of genius and the pleading of a panhandler.</p>
|
||||
<p>The young man sprang to his feet. “Hello, Bink, old boy!” he shouted. “Don’t tell me you were going to pass our table. Join us—unless you’ve another crowd on hand.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t mind, old chap,” said Binkley, of the fish-stall. “You know how I like to butt up against the fine arts. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Vandyke—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Madder—er—Miss Martin, one of the elect also in art—er—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t mind, old chap,” said Binkley, of the fish-stall. “You know how I like to butt up against the fine arts. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Vandyke—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Madder—er—Miss Martin, one of the elect also in art—er—”</p>
|
||||
<p>The introduction went around. There were also Miss Elise and Miss ’Toinette. Perhaps they were models, for they chattered of the <abbr>St.</abbr> Regis decorations and Henry James—and they did it not badly.</p>
|
||||
<p>Medora sat in transport. Music—wild, intoxicating music made by troubadours direct from a rear basement room in Elysium—set her thoughts to dancing. Here was a world never before penetrated by her warmest imagination or any of the lines controlled by Harriman. With the Green Mountains’ external calm upon her she sat, her soul flaming in her with the fire of Andalusia. The tables were filled with Bohemia. The room was full of the fragrance of flowers—both mille and cauli. Questions and corks popped; laughter and silver rang; champagne flashed in the pail, wit flashed in the pan.</p>
|
||||
<p>Vandyke ruffled his long, black locks, disarranged his careless tie and leaned over to Madder.</p>
|
||||
@ -32,14 +32,14 @@
|
||||
<p>Medora ate strange viands and drank elderberry wine that they poured in her glass. It was just the color of that in the Vermont home. The waiter poured something in another glass that seemed to be boiling, but when she tasted it it was not hot. She had never felt so lighthearted before. She thought lovingly of the Green Mountain farm and its fauna. She leaned, smiling, to Miss Elise.</p>
|
||||
<p>“If I were at home,” she said, beamingly, “I could show you the cutest little calf!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nothing for you in the White Lane,” said Miss Elise. “Why don’t you pad?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The orchestra played a wailing waltz that Medora had learned from the hand-organs. She followed the air with nodding head in a sweet soprano hum. Madder looked across the table at her, and wondered in what strange waters Binkley had caught her in his seine. She smiled at him, and they raised glasses and drank of the wine that boiled when it was cold. Binkley had abandoned art and was prating of the unusual spring catch of shad. Miss Elise arranged the palette-and-maulstick tie pin of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Vandyke. A Philistine at some distant table was maundering volubly either about Jerome or Gérôme. A famous actress was discoursing excitably about monogrammed hosiery. A hose clerk from a department store was loudly proclaiming his opinions of the drama. A writer was abusing Dickens. A magazine editor and a photographer were drinking a dry brand at a reserved table. A 36–25–42 young lady was saying to an eminent sculptor: “Fudge for your Prax Italys! Bring one of your Venus Anno Dominis down to Cohen’s and see how quick she’d be turned down for a cloak model. Back to the quarries with your Greeks and Dagos!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The orchestra played a wailing waltz that Medora had learned from the hand-organs. She followed the air with nodding head in a sweet soprano hum. Madder looked across the table at her, and wondered in what strange waters Binkley had caught her in his seine. She smiled at him, and they raised glasses and drank of the wine that boiled when it was cold. Binkley had abandoned art and was prating of the unusual spring catch of shad. Miss Elise arranged the palette-and-maulstick tie pin of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Vandyke. A Philistine at some distant table was maundering volubly either about Jerome or Gérôme. A famous actress was discoursing excitably about monogrammed hosiery. A hose clerk from a department store was loudly proclaiming his opinions of the drama. A writer was abusing Dickens. A magazine editor and a photographer were drinking a dry brand at a reserved table. A 36–25–42 young lady was saying to an eminent sculptor: “Fudge for your Prax Italys! Bring one of your Venus Anno Dominis down to Cohen’s and see how quick she’d be turned down for a cloak model. Back to the quarries with your Greeks and Dagos!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus went Bohemia.</p>
|
||||
<p>At eleven <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Binkley took Medora to the boardinghouse and left her, with a society bow, at the foot of the hall stairs. She went up to her room and lit the gas.</p>
|
||||
<p>At eleven <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Binkley took Medora to the boardinghouse and left her, with a society bow, at the foot of the hall stairs. She went up to her room and lit the gas.</p>
|
||||
<p>And then, as suddenly as the dreadful genie arose in vapor from the copper vase of the fisherman, arose in that room the formidable shape of the New England Conscience. The terrible thing that Medora had done was revealed to her in its full enormity. She had sat in the presence of the ungodly and looked upon the wine both when it was red and effervescent.</p>
|
||||
<p>At midnight she wrote this letter:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<header>
|
||||
<p epub:type="se:letter.dateline"><span epub:type="z3998:recipient"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Beriah Hoskins</span>, Harmony, Vermont.</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="se:letter.dateline"><span epub:type="z3998:recipient"><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Beriah Hoskins</span>, Harmony, Vermont.</p>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dear Sir</span>: Henceforth, consider me as dead to you forever. I have loved you too well to blight your career by bringing into it my guilty and sin-stained life. I have succumbed to the insidious wiles of this wicked world and have been drawn into the vortex of Bohemia. There is scarcely any depth of glittering iniquity that I have not sounded. It is hopeless to combat my decision. There is no rising from the depths to which I have sunk. Endeavor to forget me. I am lost forever in the fair but brutal maze of awful Bohemia. Farewell.</p>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="fickle-fortune-or-how-gladys-hustled" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Fickle Fortune or How Gladys Hustled</h2>
|
||||
<p>“Press me no more <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Snooper,” said Gladys Vavasour-Smith. “I can never be yours.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Press me no more <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Snooper,” said Gladys Vavasour-Smith. “I can never be yours.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You have led me to believe different, Gladys,” said Bertram <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">D.</abbr> Snooper.</p>
|
||||
<p>The setting sun was flooding with golden light the oriel windows of a magnificent mansion situated in one of the most aristocratic streets west of the brick yard.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bertram <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">D.</abbr> Snooper, a poor but ambitious and talented young lawyer, had just lost his first suit. He had dared to aspire to the hand of Gladys Vavasour-Smith, the beautiful and talented daughter of one of the oldest and proudest families in the county. The bluest blood flowed in her veins. Her grandfather had sawed wood for the Hornsbys and an aunt on her mother’s side had married a man who had been kicked by General Lee’s mule.</p>
|
||||
@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
|
||||
<p>She then left the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>When she did so, a dark-complexioned man with black hair and gloomy, desperate looking clothes, came out of the fireplace where he had been concealed and stated:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Aha! I have you in my power at last, Bertram <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">D.</abbr> Snooper. Gladys Vavasour-Smith shall be mine. I am in the possession of secrets that not a soul in the world suspects. I have papers to prove that Bertram Snooper is the heir to the Tom Bean estate,<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-1" id="noteref-1" epub:type="noteref">1</a> and I have discovered that Gladys’ grandfather who sawed wood for the Hornsby’s was also a cook in Major Rhoads Fisher’s command during the war. Therefore, the family repudiate her, and she will marry me in order to drag their proud name down in the dust. Ha, ha, ha!”</p>
|
||||
<p>As the reader has doubtless long ago discovered, this man was no other than Henry <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">R.</abbr> Grasty. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Grasty then proceeded to gloat some more, and then with a sardonic laugh left for New York.</p>
|
||||
<p>As the reader has doubtless long ago discovered, this man was no other than Henry <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">R.</abbr> Grasty. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Grasty then proceeded to gloat some more, and then with a sardonic laugh left for New York.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>Fifteen years have elapsed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Of course, our readers will understand that this is only supposed to the case.</p>
|
||||
@ -33,20 +33,20 @@
|
||||
<p>We could not afford to stop a piece in the middle and wait fifteen years before continuing it.</p>
|
||||
<p>We hope this explanation will suffice. We are careful not to create any wrong impressions.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gladys Vavasour-Smith and Henry <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">R.</abbr> Grasty stood at the marriage altar.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Grasty had evidently worked his rabbit’s foot successfully, although he was quite a while in doing so.</p>
|
||||
<p>Just as the preacher was about to pronounce the fatal words on which he would have realized ten dollars and had the laugh on <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Grasty, the steeple of the church fell off and Bertram <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">D.</abbr> Snooper entered.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Grasty had evidently worked his rabbit’s foot successfully, although he was quite a while in doing so.</p>
|
||||
<p>Just as the preacher was about to pronounce the fatal words on which he would have realized ten dollars and had the laugh on <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Grasty, the steeple of the church fell off and Bertram <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">D.</abbr> Snooper entered.</p>
|
||||
<p>The preacher fell to the ground with a dull thud. He could ill afford to lose ten dollars. He was hastily removed and a cheaper one secured.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bertram <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">D.</abbr> Snooper held a <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Statesman</i> in his hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Aha!” he said, “I thought I would surprise you. I just got in this morning. Here is a paper noticing my arrival.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He handed it to Henry <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">R.</abbr> Grasty.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Grasty looked at the paper and turned deadly pale. It was dated three weeks after <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Snooper’s arrival.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Grasty looked at the paper and turned deadly pale. It was dated three weeks after <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Snooper’s arrival.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Foiled again!” he hissed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Speak, Bertram <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">D.</abbr> Snooper,” said Gladys, “why have you come between me and Henry?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I have just discovered that I am the sole heir to Tom Bean’s estate and am worth two million dollars.”</p>
|
||||
<p>With a glad cry Gladys threw herself in Bertram’s arms.</p>
|
||||
<p>Henry <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">R.</abbr> Grasty drew from his breast pocket a large tin box and opened it, took therefrom 467 pages of closely written foolscap.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What you say is true, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Snooper, but I ask you to read that,” he said, handing it to Bertram Snooper.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Snooper had no sooner read the document than he uttered a piercing shriek and bit off a large chew of tobacco.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What you say is true, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Snooper, but I ask you to read that,” he said, handing it to Bertram Snooper.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Snooper had no sooner read the document than he uttered a piercing shriek and bit off a large chew of tobacco.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All is lost,” he said.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What is that document?” asked Gladys. “Governor Hogg’s message?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is not as bad as that,” said Bertram, “but it deprives me of my entire fortune. But I care not for that, Gladys, since I have won you.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -36,7 +36,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I catch the idea,” said Goodwin. “It won’t do to let the goose and gander slip through our fingers, Billy; their feathers are too valuable. Our crowd is prepared and able to step into the shoes of the government at once; but with the treasury empty we’d stay in power about as long as a tenderfoot would stick on an untamed bronco. We must play the fox on every foot of the coast to prevent their getting out of the country.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“By the mule-back schedule,” said Keogh, “it’s five days down from San Mateo. We’ve got plenty of time to set our outposts. There’s only three places on the coast where they can hope to sail from—here and Solitas and Alazan. They’re the only points we’ll have to guard. It’s as easy as a chess problem—fox to play, and mate in three moves. Oh, goosey, goosey, gander, whither do you wander? By the blessing of the literary telegraph the boodle of this benighted fatherland shall be preserved to the honest political party that is seeking to overthrow it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The situation had been justly outlined by Keogh. The down trail from the capital was at all times a weary road to travel. A jiggety-joggety journey it was; ice-cold and hot, wet and dry. The trail climbed appalling mountains, wound like a rotten string about the brows of breathless precipices, plunged through chilling snow-fed streams, and wriggled like a snake through sunless forests teeming with menacing insect and animal life. After descending to the foothills it turned to a trident, the central prong ending at Alazan. Another branched off to Coralio; the third penetrated to Solitas. Between the sea and the foothills stretched the five miles breadth of alluvial coast. Here was the flora of the tropics in its rankest and most prodigal growth. Spaces here and there had been wrested from the jungle and planted with bananas and cane and orange groves. The rest was a riot of wild vegetation, the home of monkeys, tapirs, jaguars, alligators and prodigious reptiles and insects. Where no road was cut a serpent could scarcely make its way through the tangle of vines and creepers. Across the treacherous mangrove swamps few things without wings could safely pass. Therefore the fugitives could hope to reach the coast only by one of the routes named.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Keep the matter quiet, Billy,” advised Goodwin. “We don’t want the Ins to know that the president is in flight. I suppose Bob’s information is something of a scoop in the capital as yet. Otherwise he would not have tried to make his message a confidential one; and besides, everybody would have heard the news. I’m going around now to see <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Zavalla, and start a man up the trail to cut the telegraph wire.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Keep the matter quiet, Billy,” advised Goodwin. “We don’t want the Ins to know that the president is in flight. I suppose Bob’s information is something of a scoop in the capital as yet. Otherwise he would not have tried to make his message a confidential one; and besides, everybody would have heard the news. I’m going around now to see <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Zavalla, and start a man up the trail to cut the telegraph wire.”</p>
|
||||
<p>As Goodwin rose, Keogh threw his hat upon the grass by the door and expelled a tremendous sigh.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What’s the trouble, Billy?” asked Goodwin, pausing. “That’s the first time I ever heard you sigh.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Tis the last,” said Keogh. “With that sorrowful puff of wind I resign myself to a life of praiseworthy but harassing honesty. What are tintypes, if you please, to the opportunities of the great and hilarious class of ganders and geese? Not that I would be a president, Frank—and the boodle he’s got is too big for me to handle—but in some ways I feel my conscience hurting me for addicting myself to photographing a nation instead of running away with it. Frank, did you ever see the ‘bundle of muslin’ that His Excellency has wrapped up and carried off?”</p>
|
||||
@ -48,7 +48,7 @@
|
||||
<p>These side streets were covered by a growth of thick, rank grass, which was kept to a navigable shortness by the machetes of the police. Stone sidewalks, little more than a ledge in width, ran along the base of the mean and monotonous adobe houses. At the outskirts of the village these streets dwindled to nothing; and here were set the palm-thatched huts of the Caribs and the poorer natives, and the shabby cabins of negroes from Jamaica and the West India islands. A few structures raised their heads above the red-tiled roofs of the one-story houses—the bell tower of the Calaboza, the Hotel <span xml:lang="es">de los Estranjeros</span>, the residence of the Vesuvius Fruit Company’s agent, the store and residence of Bernard Brannigan, a ruined cathedral in which Columbus had once set foot, and, most imposing of all, the Casa Morena—the summer “White House” of the President of Anchuria. On the principal street running along the beach—the Broadway of Coralio—were the larger stores, the government bodega and post-office, the cuartel, the rum-shops and the market place.</p>
|
||||
<p>On his way Goodwin passed the house of Bernard Brannigan. It was a modern wooden building, two stories in height. The ground floor was occupied by Brannigan’s store, the upper one contained the living apartments. A wide cool porch ran around the house halfway up its outer walls. A handsome, vivacious girl neatly dressed in flowing white leaned over the railing and smiled down upon Goodwin. She was no darker than many an Andalusian of high descent; and she sparkled and glowed like a tropical moonlight.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Good evening, Miss Paula,” said Goodwin, taking off his hat, with his ready smile. There was little difference in his manner whether he addressed women or men. Everybody in Coralio liked to receive the salutation of the big American.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is there any news, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goodwin? Please don’t say no. Isn’t it warm? I feel just like Mariana in her moated grange—or was it a range?—it’s hot enough.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is there any news, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Goodwin? Please don’t say no. Isn’t it warm? I feel just like Mariana in her moated grange—or was it a range?—it’s hot enough.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, there’s no news to tell, I believe,” said Goodwin, with a mischievous look in his eye, “except that old Geddie is getting grumpier and crosser every day. If something doesn’t happen to relieve his mind I’ll have to quit smoking on his back porch—and there’s no other place available that is cool enough.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He isn’t grumpy,” said Paula Brannigan, impulsively, “when he—”</p>
|
||||
<p>But she ceased suddenly, and drew back with a deepening colour; for her mother had been a mestizo lady, and the Spanish blood had brought to Paula a certain shyness that was an adornment to the other half of her demonstrative nature.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -18,33 +18,33 @@
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">J. F. C.</abbr> Nettlewick</p>
|
||||
<p>National Bank Examiner</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“Oh—er—will you walk around inside, <abbr>Mr.</abbr>—er—Nettlewick. Your first visit—didn’t know your business, of course. Walk right around, please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The examiner was quickly inside the sacred precincts of the bank, where he was ponderously introduced to each employee in turn by <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Edlinger, the cashier—a middle-aged gentleman of deliberation, discretion, and method.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was kind of expecting Sam Turner round again, pretty soon,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Edlinger. “Sam’s been examining us now, for about four years. I guess you’ll find us all right, though, considering the tightness in business. Not overly much money on hand, but able to stand the storms, sir, stand the storms.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Turner and I have been ordered by the Comptroller to exchange districts,” said the examiner, in his decisive, formal tones. “He is covering my old territory in Southern Illinois and Indiana. I will take the cash first, please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh—er—will you walk around inside, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr>—er—Nettlewick. Your first visit—didn’t know your business, of course. Walk right around, please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The examiner was quickly inside the sacred precincts of the bank, where he was ponderously introduced to each employee in turn by <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Edlinger, the cashier—a middle-aged gentleman of deliberation, discretion, and method.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was kind of expecting Sam Turner round again, pretty soon,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Edlinger. “Sam’s been examining us now, for about four years. I guess you’ll find us all right, though, considering the tightness in business. Not overly much money on hand, but able to stand the storms, sir, stand the storms.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Turner and I have been ordered by the Comptroller to exchange districts,” said the examiner, in his decisive, formal tones. “He is covering my old territory in Southern Illinois and Indiana. I will take the cash first, please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Perry Dorsey, the teller, was already arranging his cash on the counter for the examiner’s inspection. He knew it was right to a cent, and he had nothing to fear, but he was nervous and flustered. So was every man in the bank. There was something so icy and swift, so impersonal and uncompromising about this man that his very presence seemed an accusation. He looked to be a man who would never make nor overlook an error.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick first seized the currency, and with a rapid, almost juggling motion, counted it by packages. Then he spun the sponge cup toward him and verified the count by bills. His thin, white fingers flew like some expert musician’s upon the keys of a piano. He dumped the gold upon the counter with a crash, and the coins whined and sang as they skimmed across the marble slab from the tips of his nimble digits. The air was full of fractional currency when he came to the halves and quarters. He counted the last nickle and dime. He had the scales brought, and he weighed every sack of silver in the vault. He questioned Dorsey concerning each of the cash memoranda—certain checks, charge slips, <abbr>etc.</abbr>, carried over from the previous day’s work—with unimpeachable courtesy, yet with something so mysteriously momentous in his frigid manner, that the teller was reduced to pink cheeks and a stammering tongue.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick first seized the currency, and with a rapid, almost juggling motion, counted it by packages. Then he spun the sponge cup toward him and verified the count by bills. His thin, white fingers flew like some expert musician’s upon the keys of a piano. He dumped the gold upon the counter with a crash, and the coins whined and sang as they skimmed across the marble slab from the tips of his nimble digits. The air was full of fractional currency when he came to the halves and quarters. He counted the last nickle and dime. He had the scales brought, and he weighed every sack of silver in the vault. He questioned Dorsey concerning each of the cash memoranda—certain checks, charge slips, <abbr>etc.</abbr>, carried over from the previous day’s work—with unimpeachable courtesy, yet with something so mysteriously momentous in his frigid manner, that the teller was reduced to pink cheeks and a stammering tongue.</p>
|
||||
<p>This newly-imported examiner was so different from Sam Turner. It had been Sam’s way to enter the bank with a shout, pass the cigars, and tell the latest stories he had picked up on his rounds. His customary greeting to Dorsey had been, “Hello, Perry! Haven’t skipped out with the boodle yet, I see.” Turner’s way of counting the cash had been different, too. He would finger the packages of bills in a tired kind of way, and then go into the vault and kick over a few sacks of silver, and the thing was done. Halves and quarters and dimes? Not for Sam Turner. “No chicken feed for me,” he would say when they were set before him. “I’m not in the agricultural department.” But, then, Turner was a Texan, an old friend of the bank’s president, and had known Dorsey since he was a baby.</p>
|
||||
<p>While the examiner was counting the cash, Major Thomas <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">B.</abbr> Kingman—known to everyone as “Major Tom”—the president of the First National, drove up to the side door with his old dun horse and buggy, and came inside. He saw the examiner busy with the money, and, going into the little “pony corral,” as he called it, in which his desk was railed off, he began to look over his letters.</p>
|
||||
<p>Earlier, a little incident had occurred that even the sharp eyes of the examiner had failed to notice. When he had begun his work at the cash counter, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Edlinger had winked significantly at Roy Wilson, the youthful bank messenger, and nodded his head slightly toward the front door. Roy understood, got his hat, and walked leisurely out, with his collector’s book under his arm. Once outside, he made a beeline for the Stockmen’s National. That bank was also getting ready to open. No customers had, as yet, presented themselves.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say, you people!” cried Roy, with the familiarity of youth and long acquaintance, “you want to get a move on you. There’s a new bank examiner over at the First, and he’s a stem-winder. He’s counting nickles on Perry, and he’s got the whole outfit bluffed. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Edlinger gave me the tip to let you know.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Buckley, president of the Stockmen’s National—a stout, elderly man, looking like a farmer dressed for Sunday—heard Roy from his private office at the rear and called him.</p>
|
||||
<p>Earlier, a little incident had occurred that even the sharp eyes of the examiner had failed to notice. When he had begun his work at the cash counter, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Edlinger had winked significantly at Roy Wilson, the youthful bank messenger, and nodded his head slightly toward the front door. Roy understood, got his hat, and walked leisurely out, with his collector’s book under his arm. Once outside, he made a beeline for the Stockmen’s National. That bank was also getting ready to open. No customers had, as yet, presented themselves.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say, you people!” cried Roy, with the familiarity of youth and long acquaintance, “you want to get a move on you. There’s a new bank examiner over at the First, and he’s a stem-winder. He’s counting nickles on Perry, and he’s got the whole outfit bluffed. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Edlinger gave me the tip to let you know.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Buckley, president of the Stockmen’s National—a stout, elderly man, looking like a farmer dressed for Sunday—heard Roy from his private office at the rear and called him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Has Major Kingman come down to the bank yet?” he asked of the boy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, sir, he was just driving up as I left,” said Roy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I want you to take him a note. Put it into his own hands as soon as you get back.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Buckley sat down and began to write.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Buckley sat down and began to write.</p>
|
||||
<p>Roy returned and handed to Major Kingman the envelope containing the note. The major read it, folded it, and slipped it into his vest pocket. He leaned back in his chair for a few moments as if he were meditating deeply, and then rose and went into the vault. He came out with the bulky, old-fashioned leather note case stamped on the back in gilt letters, “Bills Discounted.” In this were the notes due the bank with their attached securities, and the major, in his rough way, dumped the lot upon his desk and began to sort them over.</p>
|
||||
<p>By this time Nettlewick had finished his count of the cash. His pencil fluttered like a swallow over the sheet of paper on which he had set his figures. He opened his black wallet, which seemed to be also a kind of secret memorandum book, made a few rapid figures in it, wheeled and transfixed Dorsey with the glare of his spectacles. That look seemed to say: “You’re safe this time, but—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Cash all correct,” snapped the examiner. He made a dash for the individual bookkeeper, and, for a few minutes there was a fluttering of ledger leaves and a sailing of balance sheets through the air.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How often do you balance your passbooks?” he demanded, suddenly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Er—once a month,” faltered the individual bookkeeper, wondering how many years they would give him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said the examiner, turning and charging upon the general bookkeeper, who had the statements of his foreign banks and their reconcilement memoranda ready. Everything there was found to be all right. Then the stub book of the certificates of deposit. Flutter—flutter—zip—zip—check! All right. List of overdrafts, please. Thanks. H’m-m. Unsigned bills of the bank, next. All right.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then came the cashier’s turn, and easygoing <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Edlinger rubbed his nose and polished his glasses nervously under the quick fire of questions concerning the circulation, undivided profits, bank real estate, and stock ownership.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then came the cashier’s turn, and easygoing <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Edlinger rubbed his nose and polished his glasses nervously under the quick fire of questions concerning the circulation, undivided profits, bank real estate, and stock ownership.</p>
|
||||
<p>Presently Nettlewick was aware of a big man towering above him at his elbow—a man sixty years of age, rugged and hale, with a rough, grizzled beard, a mass of gray hair, and a pair of penetrating blue eyes that confronted the formidable glasses of the examiner without a flicker.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Er—Major Kingman, our president—er—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick,” said the cashier.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Er—Major Kingman, our president—er—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick,” said the cashier.</p>
|
||||
<p>Two men of very different types shook hands. One was a finished product of the world of straight lines, conventional methods, and formal affairs. The other was something freer, wider, and nearer to nature. Tom Kingman had not been cut to any pattern. He had been mule-driver, cowboy, ranger, soldier, sheriff, prospector, and cattleman. Now, when he was bank president, his old comrades from the prairies, of the saddle, tent, and trail found no change in him. He had made his fortune when Texas cattle were at the high tide of value, and had organized the First National Bank of San Rosario. In spite of his largeness of heart and sometimes unwise generosity toward his old friends, the bank had prospered, for Major Tom Kingman knew men as well as he knew cattle. Of late years the cattle business had known a depression, and the major’s bank was one of the few whose losses had not been great.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And now,” said the examiner, briskly, pulling out his watch, “the last thing is the loans. We will take them up now, if you please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He had gone through the First National at almost record-breaking speed—but thoroughly, as he did everything. The running order of the bank was smooth and clean, and that had facilitated his work. There was but one other bank in the town. He received from the Government a fee of twenty-five dollars for each bank that he examined. He should be able to go over those loans and discounts in half an hour. If so, he could examine the other bank immediately afterward, and catch the 11:45, the only other train that day in the direction he was working. Otherwise, he would have to spend the night and Sunday in this uninteresting Western town. That was why <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick was rushing matters.</p>
|
||||
<p>He had gone through the First National at almost record-breaking speed—but thoroughly, as he did everything. The running order of the bank was smooth and clean, and that had facilitated his work. There was but one other bank in the town. He received from the Government a fee of twenty-five dollars for each bank that he examined. He should be able to go over those loans and discounts in half an hour. If so, he could examine the other bank immediately afterward, and catch the 11:45, the only other train that day in the direction he was working. Otherwise, he would have to spend the night and Sunday in this uninteresting Western town. That was why <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick was rushing matters.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Come with me, sir,” said Major Kingman, in his deep voice, that united the Southern drawl with the rhythmic twang of the West; “We will go over them together. Nobody in the bank knows those notes as I do. Some of ’em are a little wobbly on their legs, and some are mavericks without extra many brands on their backs, but they’ll most all pay out at the roundup.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The two sat down at the president’s desk. First, the examiner went through the notes at lightning speed, and added up their total, finding it to agree with the amount of loans carried on the book of daily balances. Next, he took up the larger loans, inquiring scrupulously into the condition of their endorsers or securities. The new examiner’s mind seemed to course and turn and make unexpected dashes hither and thither like a bloodhound seeking a trail. Finally he pushed aside all the notes except a few, which he arranged in a neat pile before him, and began a dry, formal little speech.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I find, sir, the condition of your bank to be very good, considering the poor crops and the depression in the cattle interests of your state. The clerical work seems to be done accurately and punctually. Your past-due paper is moderate in amount, and promises only a small loss. I would recommend the calling in of your large loans, and the making of only sixty and ninety day or call loans until general business revives. And now, there is one thing more, and I will have finished with the bank. Here are six notes aggregating something like $40,000. They are secured, according to their faces, by various stocks, bonds, shares, <abbr>etc.</abbr> to the value of $70,000. Those securities are missing from the notes to which they should be attached. I suppose you have them in the safe or vault. You will permit me to examine them.”</p>
|
||||
@ -68,7 +68,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Two days went by and we never got a clue. It couldn’t have been burglars, for the safe had been opened by the combination in the proper way. People must have begun to talk, for one afternoon in comes Alice—that’s my wife—and the boy and girl, and Alice stamps her foot, and her eyes flash, and she cries out, ‘The lying wretches—Tom, Tom!’ and I catch her in a faint, and bring her ’round little by little, and she lays her head down and cries and cries for the first time since she took Tom Kingman’s name and fortunes. And Jack and Zilla—the youngsters—they were always wild as tiger cubs to rush at Bob and climb all over him whenever they were allowed to come to the courthouse—they stood and kicked their little shoes, and herded together like scared partridges. They were having their first trip down into the shadows of life. Bob was working at his desk, and he got up and went out without a word. The grand jury was in session then, and the next morning Bob went before them and confessed that he stole the money. He said he lost it in a poker game. In fifteen minutes they had found a true bill and sent me the warrant to arrest the man with whom I’d been closer than a thousand brothers for many a year.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I did it, and then I said to Bob, pointing: ‘There’s my house, and here’s my office, and up there’s Maine, and out that way is California, and over there is Florida—and that’s your range ’til court meets. You’re in my charge, and I take the responsibility. You be here when you’re wanted.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Thanks, Tom,’ he said, kind of carelessly; ‘I was sort of hoping you wouldn’t lock me up. Court meets next Monday, so, if you don’t object, I’ll just loaf around the office until then. I’ve got one favour to ask, if it isn’t too much. If you’d let the kids come out in the yard once in a while and have a romp I’d like it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Why not?’ I answered him. ‘They’re welcome, and so are you. And come to my house, the same as ever.’ You see, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick, you can’t make a friend of a thief, but neither can you make a thief of a friend, all at once.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Why not?’ I answered him. ‘They’re welcome, and so are you. And come to my house, the same as ever.’ You see, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick, you can’t make a friend of a thief, but neither can you make a thief of a friend, all at once.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The examiner made no answer. At that moment was heard the shrill whistle of a locomotive pulling into the depot. That was the train on the little, narrow-gauge road that struck into San Rosario from the south. The major cocked his ear and listened for a moment, and looked at his watch. The narrow-gauge was in on time—10:35. The major continued:</p>
|
||||
<p>“So Bob hung around the office, reading the papers and smoking. I put another deputy to work in his place, and after a while, the first excitement of the case wore off.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One day when we were alone in the office Bob came over to where I was sitting. He was looking sort of grim and blue—the same look he used to get when he’d been up watching for Indians all night or herd-riding.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="from-each-according-to-his-ability" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">From Each According to His Ability</h2>
|
||||
<p>Vuyning left his club, cursing it softly, without any particular anger. From ten in the morning until eleven it had bored him immeasurably. Kirk with his fish story, Brooks with his Puerto Rico cigars, old Morrison with his anecdote about the widow, Hepburn with his invariable luck at billiards—all these afflictions had been repeated without change of bill or scenery. Besides these morning evils Miss Allison had refused him again on the night before. But that was a chronic trouble. Five times she had laughed at his offer to make her <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Vuyning. He intended to ask her again the next Wednesday evening.</p>
|
||||
<p>Vuyning left his club, cursing it softly, without any particular anger. From ten in the morning until eleven it had bored him immeasurably. Kirk with his fish story, Brooks with his Puerto Rico cigars, old Morrison with his anecdote about the widow, Hepburn with his invariable luck at billiards—all these afflictions had been repeated without change of bill or scenery. Besides these morning evils Miss Allison had refused him again on the night before. But that was a chronic trouble. Five times she had laughed at his offer to make her <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Vuyning. He intended to ask her again the next Wednesday evening.</p>
|
||||
<p>Vuyning walked along Forty-fourth Street to Broadway, and then drifted down the great sluice that washes out the dust of the goldmines of Gotham. He wore a morning suit of light gray, low, dull kid shoes, a plain, finely woven straw hat, and his visible linen was the most delicate possible shade of heliotrope. His necktie was the blue-gray of a November sky, and its knot was plainly the outcome of a lordly carelessness combined with an accurate conception of the most recent dictum of fashion.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, to write of a man’s haberdashery is a worse thing than to write a historical novel “around” Paul Jones, or to pen a testimonial to a hay-fever cure.</p>
|
||||
<p>Therefore, let it be known that the description of Vuyning’s apparel is germane to the movements of the story, and not to make room for the new fall stock of goods.</p>
|
||||
@ -57,7 +57,7 @@
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>The next morning at ten he met Vuyning, by appointment, at a Forty-second Street café.</p>
|
||||
<p>Emerson was to leave for the West that day. He wore a suit of dark cheviot that looked to have been draped upon him by an ancient Grecian tailor who was a few thousand years ahead of the styles.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Vuyning,” said he, with the clear, ingenuous smile of the successful “crook,” “it’s up to me to go the limit for you any time I can do so. You’re the real thing; and if I can ever return the favor, you bet your life I’ll do it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Vuyning,” said he, with the clear, ingenuous smile of the successful “crook,” “it’s up to me to go the limit for you any time I can do so. You’re the real thing; and if I can ever return the favor, you bet your life I’ll do it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What was that cowpuncher’s name?” asked Vuyning, “who used to catch a mustang by the nose and mane, and throw him till he put the bridle on?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bates,” said Emerson.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thanks,” said Vuyning. “I thought it was Yates. Oh, about that toggery business—I’d forgotten that.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
|
||||
<p>As time passed, the Commissioner seemed to grow more silent, solitary, and reserved. A new phase of mind developed in him. He could not endure the presence of a child. Often when a clattering youngster belonging to one of the clerks would come chattering into the big business-room adjoining his little apartment, the Commissioner would steal softly and close the door. He would always cross the street to avoid meeting the schoolchildren when they came dancing along in happy groups upon the sidewalk, and his firm mouth would close into a mere line.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was nearly three months after the rains had washed the last dead flower-petals from the mound above little Georgia when the “land-shark” firm of Hamlin and Avery filed papers upon what they considered the “fattest” vacancy of the year.</p>
|
||||
<p>It should not be supposed that all who were termed “land-sharks” deserved the name. Many of them were reputable men of good business character. Some of them could walk into the most august councils of the State and say: “Gentlemen, we would like to have this, and that, and matters go thus.” But, next to a three years’ drought and the bollworm, the Actual Settler hated the Land-shark. The land-shark haunted the Land Office, where all the land records were kept, and hunted “vacancies”—that is, tracts of unappropriated public domain, generally invisible upon the official maps, but actually existing “upon the ground.” The law entitled anyone possessing certain State scrip to file by virtue of same upon any land not previously legally appropriated. Most of the scrip was now in the hands of the land-sharks. Thus, at the cost of a few hundred dollars, they often secured lands worth as many thousands. Naturally, the search for “vacancies” was lively.</p>
|
||||
<p>But often—very often—the land they thus secured, though legally “unappropriated,” would be occupied by happy and contented settlers, who had laboured for years to build up their homes, only to discover that their titles were worthless, and to receive peremptory notice to quit. Thus came about the bitter and not unjustifiable hatred felt by the toiling settlers toward the shrewd and seldom merciful speculators who so often turned them forth destitute and homeless from their fruitless labours. The history of the state teems with their antagonism. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Land-shark seldom showed his face on “locations” from which he should have to eject the unfortunate victims of a monstrously tangled land system, but let his emissaries do the work. There was lead in every cabin, moulded into balls for him; many of his brothers had enriched the grass with their blood. The fault of it all lay far back.</p>
|
||||
<p>But often—very often—the land they thus secured, though legally “unappropriated,” would be occupied by happy and contented settlers, who had laboured for years to build up their homes, only to discover that their titles were worthless, and to receive peremptory notice to quit. Thus came about the bitter and not unjustifiable hatred felt by the toiling settlers toward the shrewd and seldom merciful speculators who so often turned them forth destitute and homeless from their fruitless labours. The history of the state teems with their antagonism. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Land-shark seldom showed his face on “locations” from which he should have to eject the unfortunate victims of a monstrously tangled land system, but let his emissaries do the work. There was lead in every cabin, moulded into balls for him; many of his brothers had enriched the grass with their blood. The fault of it all lay far back.</p>
|
||||
<p>When the state was young, she felt the need of attracting newcomers, and of rewarding those pioneers already within her borders. Year after year she issued land scrip—Headrights, Bounties, Veteran Donations, Confederates; and to railroads, irrigation companies, colonies, and tillers of the soil galore. All required of the grantee was that he or it should have the scrip properly surveyed upon the public domain by the county or district surveyor, and the land thus appropriated became the property of him or it, or his or its heirs and assigns, forever.</p>
|
||||
<p>In those days—and here is where the trouble began—the state’s domain was practically inexhaustible, and the old surveyors, with princely—yea, even Western American—liberality, gave good measure and overflowing. Often the jovial man of metes and bounds would dispense altogether with the tripod and chain. Mounted on a pony that could cover something near a “vara” at a step, with a pocket compass to direct his course, he would trot out a survey by counting the beat of his pony’s hoofs, mark his corners, and write out his field notes with the complacency produced by an act of duty well performed. Sometimes—and who could blame the surveyor?—when the pony was “feeling his oats,” he might step a little higher and farther, and in that case the beneficiary of the scrip might get a thousand or two more acres in his survey than the scrip called for. But look at the boundless leagues the state had to spare! However, no one ever had to complain of the pony under-stepping. Nearly every old survey in the state contained an excess of land.</p>
|
||||
<p>In later years, when the state became more populous, and land values increased, this careless work entailed incalculable trouble, endless litigation, a period of riotous land-grabbing, and no little bloodshed. The land-sharks voraciously attacked these excesses in the old surveys, and filed upon such portions with new scrip as unappropriated public domain. Wherever the identifications of the old tracts were vague, and the corners were not to be clearly established, the Land Office would recognize the newer locations as valid, and issue title to the locators. Here was the greatest hardship to be found. These old surveys, taken from the pick of the land, were already nearly all occupied by unsuspecting and peaceful settlers, and thus their titles were demolished, and the choice was placed before them either to buy their land over at a double price or to vacate it, with their families and personal belongings, immediately. Land locators sprang up by hundreds. The country was held up and searched for “vacancies” at the point of a compass. Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of splendid acres were wrested from their innocent purchasers and holders. There began a vast hegira of evicted settlers in tattered wagons; going nowhere, cursing injustice, stunned, purposeless, homeless, hopeless. Their children began to look up to them for bread, and cry.</p>
|
||||
@ -40,13 +40,13 @@
|
||||
<p>The Actual Settler was besieging the office with wild protests in re. Having the nose of a pointer and the eye of a hawk for the land-shark, he had observed his myrmidons running the lines upon his ground. Making inquiries, he learned that the spoiler had attacked his home, and he left the plough in the furrow and took his pen in hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>One of the protests the Commissioner read twice. It was from a woman, a widow, the granddaughter of Elias Denny himself. She told how her grandfather had sold most of the survey years before at a trivial price—land that was now a principality in extent and value. Her mother had also sold a part, and she herself had succeeded to this western portion, along Chiquito River. Much of it she had been forced to part with in order to live, and now she owned only about three hundred acres, on which she had her home. Her letter wound up rather pathetically:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p>“I’ve got eight children, the oldest fifteen years. I work all day and half the night to till what little land I can and keep us in clothes and books. I teach my children too. My neighbours is all poor and has big families. The drought kills the crops every two or three years and then we has hard times to get enough to eat. There is ten families on this land what the land-sharks is trying to rob us of, and all of them got titles from me. I sold to them cheap, and they aint paid out yet, but part of them is, and if their land should be took from them I would die. My grandfather was an honest man, and he helped to build up this state, and he taught his children to be honest, and how could I make it up to them who bought from me? <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Commissioner, if you let them land-sharks take the roof from over my children and the little from them as they has to live on, whoever again calls this state great or its government just will have a lie in their mouths.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve got eight children, the oldest fifteen years. I work all day and half the night to till what little land I can and keep us in clothes and books. I teach my children too. My neighbours is all poor and has big families. The drought kills the crops every two or three years and then we has hard times to get enough to eat. There is ten families on this land what the land-sharks is trying to rob us of, and all of them got titles from me. I sold to them cheap, and they aint paid out yet, but part of them is, and if their land should be took from them I would die. My grandfather was an honest man, and he helped to build up this state, and he taught his children to be honest, and how could I make it up to them who bought from me? <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Commissioner, if you let them land-sharks take the roof from over my children and the little from them as they has to live on, whoever again calls this state great or its government just will have a lie in their mouths.”</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>The Commissioner laid this letter aside with a sigh. Many, many such letters he had received. He had never been hurt by them, nor had he ever felt that they appealed to him personally. He was but the state’s servant, and must follow its laws. And yet, somehow, this reflection did not always eliminate a certain responsible feeling that hung upon him. Of all the state’s officers he was supremest in his department, not even excepting the Governor. Broad, general land laws he followed, it was true, but he had a wide latitude in particular ramifications. Rather than law, what he followed was Rulings: Office Rulings and precedents. In the complicated and new questions that were being engendered by the state’s development the Commissioner’s ruling was rarely appealed from. Even the courts sustained it when its equity was apparent.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Commissioner stepped to the door and spoke to a clerk in the other room—spoke as he always did, as if he were addressing a prince of the blood:</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Weldon, will you be kind enough to ask <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ashe, the state school-land appraiser, to please come to my office as soon as convenient?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Weldon, will you be kind enough to ask <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ashe, the state school-land appraiser, to please come to my office as soon as convenient?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ashe came quickly from the big table where he was arranging his reports.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ashe,” said the Commissioner, “you worked along the Chiquito River, in Salado County, during your last trip, I believe. Do you remember anything of the Elias Denny three-league survey?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ashe,” said the Commissioner, “you worked along the Chiquito River, in Salado County, during your last trip, I believe. Do you remember anything of the Elias Denny three-league survey?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, sir, I do,” the blunt, breezy, surveyor answered. “I crossed it on my way to Block H, on the north side of it. The road runs with the Chiquito River, along the valley. The Denny survey fronts three miles on the Chiquito.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is claimed,” continued the commissioner, “that it fails to reach the river by as much as a mile.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The appraiser shrugged his shoulder. He was by birth and instinct an Actual Settler, and the natural foe of the land-shark.</p>
|
||||
@ -58,9 +58,9 @@
|
||||
<p>“Ho, ho! I mean two-legged kids,” laughed the surveyor; “two-legged, and barelegged, and towheaded.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Children! oh, children!” mused the Commissioner, as though a new view had opened to him; “they raise children!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s a lonesome country, Commissioner,” said the surveyor. “Can you blame ’em?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suppose,” continued the Commissioner, slowly, as one carefully pursues deductions from a new, stupendous theory, “not all of them are towheaded. It would not be unreasonable, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ashe, I conjecture, to believe that a portion of them have brown, or even black, hair.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suppose,” continued the Commissioner, slowly, as one carefully pursues deductions from a new, stupendous theory, “not all of them are towheaded. It would not be unreasonable, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ashe, I conjecture, to believe that a portion of them have brown, or even black, hair.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Brown and black, sure,” said Ashe; “also red.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No doubt,” said the Commissioner. “Well, I thank you for your courtesy in informing me, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ashe. I will not detain you any longer from your duties.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No doubt,” said the Commissioner. “Well, I thank you for your courtesy in informing me, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Ashe. I will not detain you any longer from your duties.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Later, in the afternoon, came Hamlin and Avery, big, handsome, genial, sauntering men, clothed in white duck and low-cut shoes. They permeated the whole office with an aura of debonair prosperity. They passed among the clerks and left a wake of abbreviated given names and fat brown cigars.</p>
|
||||
<p>These were the aristocracy of the land-sharks, who went in for big things. Full of serene confidence in themselves, there was no corporation, no syndicate, no railroad company or attorney general too big for them to tackle. The peculiar smoke of their rare, fat brown cigars was to be perceived in the sanctum of every department of state, in every committee-room of the Legislature, in every bank parlour and every private caucus-room in the state Capital. Always pleasant, never in a hurry, in seeming to possess unlimited leisure, people wondered when they gave their attention to the many audacious enterprises in which they were known to be engaged.</p>
|
||||
<p>By and by the two dropped carelessly into the Commissioner’s room and reclined lazily in the big, leather-upholstered armchairs. They drawled a good-natured complaint of the weather, and Hamlin told the Commissioner an excellent story he had amassed that morning from the Secretary of State.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -59,7 +59,7 @@
|
||||
<header>
|
||||
<p>Fatal Accident</p>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<p>Last evening <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Alter Ego of this city was killed by the explosion of a kerosene lamp while at work in his room.</p>
|
||||
<p>Last evening <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Alter Ego of this city was killed by the explosion of a kerosene lamp while at work in his room.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“Now, you see, miss, the item includes the main facts in the case, and—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sir!” said the young lady indignantly. “There is nothing of the kind intimated in the poem. The lines are imaginary and are intended to express the sorrow of a poet’s friend at his untimely demise.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -17,8 +17,8 @@
|
||||
<p>“I’ve found where she lives,” he announced in the portentous half-whisper that makes the detective at work a marked being to his fellow men.</p>
|
||||
<p>Hartley scowled him into a state of dramatic silence and quietude. But by that time Robbins had got his cane and set his tie pin to his liking, and with a debonair nod went out to his metropolitan amusements.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Here is the address,” said the detective in a natural tone, being deprived of an audience to foil.</p>
|
||||
<p>Hartley took the leaf torn out of the sleuth’s dingy memorandum book. On it were pencilled the words “Vivienne Arlington, <abbr>No.</abbr> 341 East ⸺th Street, care of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McComus.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Moved there a week ago,” said the detective. “Now, if you want any shadowing done, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hartley, I can do you as fine a job in that line as anybody in the city. It will be only $7 a day and expenses. Can send in a daily typewritten report, covering—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Hartley took the leaf torn out of the sleuth’s dingy memorandum book. On it were pencilled the words “Vivienne Arlington, <abbr>No.</abbr> 341 East ⸺th Street, care of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McComus.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Moved there a week ago,” said the detective. “Now, if you want any shadowing done, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Hartley, I can do you as fine a job in that line as anybody in the city. It will be only $7 a day and expenses. Can send in a daily typewritten report, covering—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You needn’t go on,” interrupted the broker. “It isn’t a case of that kind. I merely wanted the address. How much shall I pay you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“One day’s work,” said the sleuth. “A tenner will cover it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Hartley paid the man and dismissed him. Then he left the office and boarded a Broadway car. At the first large crosstown artery of travel he took an eastbound car that deposited him in a decaying avenue, whose ancient structures once sheltered the pride and glory of the town.</p>
|
||||
@ -30,15 +30,15 @@
|
||||
<p>She was dressed in a white waist and dark skirt—that discreet masquerade of goose-girl and duchess.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Vivienne,” said Hartley, looking at her pleadingly, “you did not answer my last letter. It was only by nearly a week’s search that I found where you had moved to. Why have you kept me in suspense when you knew how anxiously I was waiting to see you and hear from you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The girl looked out the window dreamily.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hartley,” she said hesitatingly, “I hardly know what to say to you. I realize all the advantages of your offer, and sometimes I feel sure that I could be contented with you. But, again, I am doubtful. I was born a city girl, and I am afraid to bind myself to a quiet suburban life.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Hartley,” she said hesitatingly, “I hardly know what to say to you. I realize all the advantages of your offer, and sometimes I feel sure that I could be contented with you. But, again, I am doubtful. I was born a city girl, and I am afraid to bind myself to a quiet suburban life.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“My dear girl,” said Hartley, ardently, “have I not told you that you shall have everything that your heart can desire that is in my power to give you? You shall come to the city for the theatres, for shopping and to visit your friends as often as you care to. You can trust me, can you not?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“To the fullest,” she said, turning her frank eyes upon him with a smile. “I know you are the kindest of men, and that the girl you get will be a lucky one. I learned all about you when I was at the Montgomerys’.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ah!” exclaimed Hartley, with a tender, reminiscent light in his eye; “I remember well the evening I first saw you at the Montgomerys’. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Montgomery was sounding your praises to me all the evening. And she hardly did you justice. I shall never forget that supper. Come, Vivienne, promise me. I want you. You’ll never regret coming with me. No one else will ever give you as pleasant a home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ah!” exclaimed Hartley, with a tender, reminiscent light in his eye; “I remember well the evening I first saw you at the Montgomerys’. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Montgomery was sounding your praises to me all the evening. And she hardly did you justice. I shall never forget that supper. Come, Vivienne, promise me. I want you. You’ll never regret coming with me. No one else will ever give you as pleasant a home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The girl sighed and looked down at her folded hands.</p>
|
||||
<p>A sudden jealous suspicion seized Hartley.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Tell me, Vivienne,” he asked, regarding her keenly, “is there another—is there someone else?”</p>
|
||||
<p>A rosy flush crept slowly over her fair cheeks and neck.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You shouldn’t ask that, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hartley,” she said, in some confusion. “But I will tell you. There is one other—but he has no right—I have promised him nothing.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You shouldn’t ask that, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Hartley,” she said, in some confusion. “But I will tell you. There is one other—but he has no right—I have promised him nothing.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“His name?” demanded Hartley, sternly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Townsend.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Rafford Townsend!” exclaimed Hartley, with a grim tightening of his jaw. “How did that man come to know you? After all I’ve done for him—”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -44,7 +44,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“And then I noticed he looked funny, and I turned around.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’d taken off his clothes to the waist, and he didn’t seem to hear me. I touched him, and came near beating it. High Jack had turned to stone. I had been drinking some rum myself.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Ossified!’ I says to him, loudly. ‘I knew what would happen if you kept it up.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“And then High Jack comes in from the alcove when he hears me conversing with nobody, and we have a look at <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Snakefeeder <abbr>No.</abbr> 2. It’s a stone idol, or god, or revised statute or something, and it looks as much like High Jack as one green pea looks like itself. It’s got exactly his face and size and color, but it’s steadier on its pins. It stands on a kind of rostrum or pedestal, and you can see it’s been there ten million years.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And then High Jack comes in from the alcove when he hears me conversing with nobody, and we have a look at <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Snakefeeder <abbr>No.</abbr> 2. It’s a stone idol, or god, or revised statute or something, and it looks as much like High Jack as one green pea looks like itself. It’s got exactly his face and size and color, but it’s steadier on its pins. It stands on a kind of rostrum or pedestal, and you can see it’s been there ten million years.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘He’s a cousin of mine,’ sings High, and then he turns solemn.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Hunky,’ he says, putting one hand on my shoulder and one on the statue’s, ‘I’m in the holy temple of my ancestors.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Well, if looks goes for anything,’ says I, ‘you’ve struck a twin. Stand side by side with buddy, and let’s see if there’s any difference.’</p>
|
||||
@ -93,7 +93,7 @@
|
||||
<p>I wondered what Hunky Magee thought about his own story; so I asked him if he had any theories about reincarnation and transmogrification and such mysteries as he had touched upon.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nothing like that,” said Hunky, positively. “What ailed High Jack was too much booze and education. They’ll do an Indian up every time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But what about Miss Blue Feather?” I persisted.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say,” said Hunky, with a grin, “that little lady that stole High Jack certainly did give me a jar when I first took a look at her, but it was only for a minute. You remember I told you High Jack said that Miss Florence Blue Feather disappeared from home about a year ago? Well, where she landed four days later was in as neat a five-room flat on East Twenty-third Street as you ever walked sideways through—and she’s been <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Magee ever since.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say,” said Hunky, with a grin, “that little lady that stole High Jack certainly did give me a jar when I first took a look at her, but it was only for a minute. You remember I told you High Jack said that Miss Florence Blue Feather disappeared from home about a year ago? Well, where she landed four days later was in as neat a five-room flat on East Twenty-third Street as you ever walked sideways through—and she’s been <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Magee ever since.”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Baldy emptied his glass to the ratification of his Warwick pose.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Baldy,” said Webb, solemnly, “me and you punched cows in the same outfit for years. We been runnin’ on the same range, and ridin’ the same trails since we was boys. I wouldn’t talk about my family affairs to nobody but you. You was line-rider on the Nopalito Ranch when I married Santa McAllister. I was foreman then; but what am I now? I don’t amount to a knot in a stake rope.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“When old McAllister was the cattle king of West Texas,” continued Baldy with Satanic sweetness, “you was some tallow. You had as much to say on the ranch as he did.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I did,” admitted Webb, “up to the time he found out I was tryin’ to get my rope over Santa’s head. Then he kept me out on the range as far from the ranch-house as he could. When the old man died they commenced to call Santa the ‘cattle queen.’ I’m boss of the cattle—that’s all. She ’tends to all the business; she handles all the money; I can’t sell even a beef-steer to a party of campers, myself. Santa’s the ‘queen’; and I’m <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nobody.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I did,” admitted Webb, “up to the time he found out I was tryin’ to get my rope over Santa’s head. Then he kept me out on the range as far from the ranch-house as he could. When the old man died they commenced to call Santa the ‘cattle queen.’ I’m boss of the cattle—that’s all. She ’tends to all the business; she handles all the money; I can’t sell even a beef-steer to a party of campers, myself. Santa’s the ‘queen’; and I’m <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Nobody.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’d be king if I was you,” repeated Baldy Woods, the royalist. “When a man marries a queen he ought to grade up with her—on the hoof—dressed—dried—corned—any old way from the chaparral to the packing-gouse. Lots of folks thinks it’s funny, Webb, that you don’t have the say-so on the Nopalito. I ain’t reflectin’ none on Miz Yeager—she’s the finest little lady between the Rio Grande and next Christmas—but a man ought to be boss of his own camp.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The smooth, brown face of Yeager lengthened to a mask of wounded melancholy. With that expression, and his rumpled yellow hair and guileless blue eyes, he might have been likened to a schoolboy whose leadership had been usurped by a youngster of superior strength. But his active and sinewy seventy-two inches, and his girded revolvers forbade the comparison.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What was that you called me, Baldy?” he asked. “What kind of a concert was it?”</p>
|
||||
@ -44,7 +44,7 @@
|
||||
<p>With a pounding rush that sounded like the rise of a covey of quail, the riders sped away toward different points of the compass. A hundred yards on his route Baldy reined in on the top of a bare knoll, and emitted a yell. He swayed on his horse; had he been on foot, the earth would have risen and conquered him; but in the saddle he was a master of equilibrium, and laughed at whisky, and despised the centre of gravity.</p>
|
||||
<p>Webb turned in his saddle at the signal.</p>
|
||||
<p>“If I was you,” came Baldy’s strident and perverting tones, “I’d be king!”</p>
|
||||
<p>At eight o’clock on the following morning Bud Turner rolled from his saddle in front of the Nopalito ranch-house, and stumbled with whizzing rowels toward the gallery. Bud was in charge of the bunch of beef-cattle that was to strike the trail that morning for San Antonio. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Yeager was on the gallery watering a cluster of hyacinths growing in a red earthenware jar.</p>
|
||||
<p>At eight o’clock on the following morning Bud Turner rolled from his saddle in front of the Nopalito ranch-house, and stumbled with whizzing rowels toward the gallery. Bud was in charge of the bunch of beef-cattle that was to strike the trail that morning for San Antonio. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Yeager was on the gallery watering a cluster of hyacinths growing in a red earthenware jar.</p>
|
||||
<p>“King” McAllister had bequeathed to his daughter many of his strong characteristics—his resolution, his gay courage, his contumacious self-reliance, his pride as a reigning monarch of hoofs and horns. Allegro and fortissimo had been McAllister’s temp and tone. In Santa they survived, transposed to the feminine key. Substantially, she preserved the image of the mother who had been summoned to wander in other and less finite green pastures long before the waxing herds of kine had conferred royalty upon the house. She had her mother’s slim, strong figure and grave, soft prettiness that relieved in her the severity of the imperious McAllister eye and the McAllister air of royal independence.</p>
|
||||
<p>Webb stood on one end of the gallery giving orders to two or three sub-bosses of various camps and outfits who had ridden in for instructions.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Morning,” said Bud briefly. “Where do you want them beeves to go in town—to Barber’s, as usual?”</p>
|
||||
@ -76,12 +76,12 @@
|
||||
<p>Webb Yeager rode to the southeast as straight as the topography of West Texas permitted. And when he reached the horizon he might have ridden on into blue space as far as knowledge of him on the Nopalito went. And the days, with Sundays at their head, formed into hebdomadal squads; and the weeks, captained by the full moon, closed ranks into menstrual companies crying “Tempus fugit” on their banners; and the months marched on toward the vast campground of the years; but Webb Yeager came no more to the dominions of his queen.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day a being named Bartholomew, a sheep-man—and therefore of little account—from the lower Rio Grande country, rode in sight of the Nopalito ranch-house, and felt hunger assail him. <i xml:lang="es">Ex consuetudine</i> he was soon seated at the midday dining table of that hospitable kingdom. Talk like water gushed from him: he might have been smitten with Aaron’s rod—that is your gentle shepherd when an audience is vouchsafed him whose ears are not overgrown with wool.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Missis Yeager,” he babbled, “I see a man the other day on the Rancho Seco down in Hidalgo County by your name—Webb Yeager was his. He’d just been engaged as manager. He was a tall, light-haired man, not saying much. Perhaps he was some kin of yours, do you think?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“A husband,” said Santa cordially. “The Seco has done well. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Yeager is one of the best stockmen in the West.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“A husband,” said Santa cordially. “The Seco has done well. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Yeager is one of the best stockmen in the West.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The dropping out of a prince-consort rarely disorganises a monarchy. Queen Santa had appointed as mayordomo of the ranch a trusty subject, named Ramsay, who had been one of her father’s faithful vassals. And there was scarcely a ripple on the Nopalito ranch save when the gulf-breeze created undulations in the grass of its wide acres.</p>
|
||||
<p>For several years the Nopalito had been making experiments with an English breed of cattle that looked down with aristocratic contempt upon the Texas longhorns. The experiments were found satisfactory; and a pasture had been set aside for the blue-bloods. The fame of them had gone forth into the chaparral and pear as far as men ride in saddles. Other ranches woke up, rubbed their eyes, and looked with new dissatisfaction upon the longhorns.</p>
|
||||
<p>As a consequence, one day a sunburned, capable, silk-kerchiefed nonchalant youth, garnished with revolvers, and attended by three Mexican vaqueros, alighted at the Nopalito ranch and presented the following businesslike epistle to the queen thereof:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:recipient"><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Yeager</span>—The Nopalito Ranch: <span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dear Madam:</span> I am instructed by the owners of the Rancho Seco to purchase 100 head of two and three-year-old cows of the Sussex breed owned by you. If you can fill the order please deliver the cattle to the bearer; and a check will be forwarded to you at once.</p>
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:recipient"><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Yeager</span>—The Nopalito Ranch: <span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dear Madam:</span> I am instructed by the owners of the Rancho Seco to purchase 100 head of two and three-year-old cows of the Sussex breed owned by you. If you can fill the order please deliver the cattle to the bearer; and a check will be forwarded to you at once.</p>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:valediction">Respectfully,</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:signature">Webster Yeager,</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Hearts and Hands</h2>
|
||||
<p>At Denver there was an influx of passengers into the coaches on the eastbound <abbr>B. & M.</abbr> express. In one coach there sat a very pretty young woman dressed in elegant taste and surrounded by all the luxurious comforts of an experienced traveler. Among the newcomers were two young men, one of handsome presence with a bold, frank countenance and manner; the other a ruffled, glum-faced person, heavily built and roughly dressed. The two were handcuffed together.</p>
|
||||
<p>As they passed down the aisle of the coach the only vacant seat offered was a reversed one facing the attractive young woman. Here the linked couple seated themselves. The young woman’s glance fell upon them with a distant, swift disinterest; then with a lovely smile brightening her countenance and a tender pink tingeing her rounded cheeks, she held out a little gray-gloved hand. When she spoke her voice, full, sweet, and deliberate, proclaimed that its owner was accustomed to speak and be heard.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Easton, if you <em>will</em> make me speak first, I suppose I must. Don’t you ever recognize old friends when you meet them in the West?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Easton, if you <em>will</em> make me speak first, I suppose I must. Don’t you ever recognize old friends when you meet them in the West?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The younger man roused himself sharply at the sound of her voice, seemed to struggle with a slight embarrassment which he threw off instantly, and then clasped her fingers with his left hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s Miss Fairchild,” he said, with a smile. “I’ll ask you to excuse the other hand; it’s otherwise engaged just at present.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He slightly raised his right hand, bound at the wrist by the shining “bracelet” to the left one of his companion. The glad look in the girl’s eyes slowly changed to a bewildered horror. The glow faded from her cheeks. Her lips parted in a vague, relaxing distress. Easton, with a little laugh, as if amused, was about to speak again when the other forestalled him. The glum-faced man had been watching the girl’s countenance with veiled glances from his keen, shrewd eyes.</p>
|
||||
@ -19,11 +19,11 @@
|
||||
<p>“My dear Miss Fairchild,” said Easton, calmly, “I had to do something. Money has a way of taking wings unto itself, and you know it takes money to keep step with our crowd in Washington. I saw this opening in the West, and—well, a marshalship isn’t quite as high a position as that of ambassador, but—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The ambassador,” said the girl, warmly, “doesn’t call any more. He needn’t ever have done so. You ought to know that. And so now you are one of these dashing Western heroes, and you ride and shoot and go into all kinds of dangers. That’s different from the Washington life. You have been missed from the old crowd.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The girl’s eyes, fascinated, went back, widening a little, to rest upon the glittering handcuffs.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t you worry about them, miss,” said the other man. “All marshals handcuff themselves to their prisoners to keep them from getting away. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Easton knows his business.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t you worry about them, miss,” said the other man. “All marshals handcuff themselves to their prisoners to keep them from getting away. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Easton knows his business.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Will we see you again soon in Washington?” asked the girl.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not soon, I think,” said Easton. “My butterfly days are over, I fear.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I love the West,” said the girl irrelevantly. Her eyes were shining softly. She looked away out the car window. She began to speak truly and simply without the gloss of style and manner: “Mamma and I spent the summer in Denver. She went home a week ago because father was slightly ill. I could live and be happy in the West. I think the air here agrees with me. Money isn’t everything. But people always misunderstand things and remain stupid—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Marshal,” growled the glum-faced man. “This isn’t quite fair. I’m needing a drink, and haven’t had a smoke all day. Haven’t you talked long enough? Take me in the smoker now, won’t you? I’m half dead for a pipe.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Marshal,” growled the glum-faced man. “This isn’t quite fair. I’m needing a drink, and haven’t had a smoke all day. Haven’t you talked long enough? Take me in the smoker now, won’t you? I’m half dead for a pipe.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The bound travelers rose to their feet, Easton with the same slow smile on his face.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I can’t deny a petition for tobacco,” he said, lightly. “It’s the one friend of the unfortunate. Goodbye, Miss Fairchild. Duty calls, you know.” He held out his hand for a farewell.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s too bad you are not going East,” she said, reclothing herself with manner and style. “But you must go on to Leavenworth, I suppose?”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -49,7 +49,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Not me,’ says I. ‘Not any demon rum or any of its ramifications for mine. It’s one of my non-weaknesses.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘It’s my failing,’ says he. ‘What’s your particular soft point?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Industry,’ says I, promptly. ‘I’m hardworking, diligent, industrious, and energetic.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘My dear <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Trotter,’ says he, ‘surely I’ve known you long enough to tell you you are a liar. Every man must have his own particular weakness, and his own particular strength in other things. Now, you will buy me a drink of rum, and we will call on President Gomez.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘My dear <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Trotter,’ says he, ‘surely I’ve known you long enough to tell you you are a liar. Every man must have his own particular weakness, and his own particular strength in other things. Now, you will buy me a drink of rum, and we will call on President Gomez.’ ”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="helping-the-other-fellow-3" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">III</h3>
|
||||
@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You Yankees,’ says he, polite, ‘assuredly take the cake for assurance, I assure you’—or words to that effect. He spoke English better than you or me. ‘You’ve had a long walk,’ says he, ‘but it’s nicer in the cool morning to walk than to ride. May I suggest some refreshments?’ says he.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Rum,’ says Wainwright.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Gimme a cigar,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, sir, the two talked an hour, keeping the generals and equities all in their good uniforms waiting outside the fence. And while I smoked, silent, I listened to Clifford Wainwright making a solid republic out of the wreck of one. I didn’t follow his arguments with any special collocation of international intelligibility; but he had <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gomez’s attention glued and riveted. He takes out a pencil and marks the white linen tablecloth all over with figures and estimates and deductions. He speaks more or less disrespectfully of import and export duties and customhouse receipts and taxes and treaties and budgets and concessions and such truck that politics and government require; and when he gets through the Gomez man hops up and shakes his hand and says he’s saved the country and the people.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, sir, the two talked an hour, keeping the generals and equities all in their good uniforms waiting outside the fence. And while I smoked, silent, I listened to Clifford Wainwright making a solid republic out of the wreck of one. I didn’t follow his arguments with any special collocation of international intelligibility; but he had <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gomez’s attention glued and riveted. He takes out a pencil and marks the white linen tablecloth all over with figures and estimates and deductions. He speaks more or less disrespectfully of import and export duties and customhouse receipts and taxes and treaties and budgets and concessions and such truck that politics and government require; and when he gets through the Gomez man hops up and shakes his hand and says he’s saved the country and the people.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You shall be rewarded,’ says the president.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Might I suggest another—rum?’ says Wainwright.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Cigar for me—darker brand,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
|
||||
<p>By this time all my nervousness was gone. I felt a kind of pleasant excitement as if I were at a dance or a frolic of some sort. The lights were all out in the coaches, and, as Tom and Ike gradually quit firing and yelling, it got to be almost as still as a graveyard. I remember hearing a little bird chirping in a bush at the side of the track, as if it were complaining at being waked up.</p>
|
||||
<p>I made the fireman get a lantern, and then I went to the express car and yelled to the messenger to open up or get perforated. He slid the door back and stood in it with his hands up. “Jump overboard, son,” I said, and he hit the dirt like a lump of lead. There were two safes in the car—a big one and a little one. By the way, I first located the messenger’s arsenal—a double-barrelled shotgun with buckshot cartridges and a thirty-eight in a drawer. I drew the cartridges from the shotgun, pocketed the pistol, and called the messenger inside. I shoved my gun against his nose and put him to work. He couldn’t open the big safe, but he did the little one. There was only nine hundred dollars in it. That was mighty small winnings for our trouble, so we decided to go through the passengers. We took our prisoners to the smoking-car, and from there sent the engineer through the train to light up the coaches. Beginning with the first one, we placed a man at each door and ordered the passengers to stand between the seats with their hands up.</p>
|
||||
<p>If you want to find out what cowards the majority of men are, all you have to do is rob a passenger train. I don’t mean because they don’t resist—I’ll tell you later on why they can’t do that—but it makes a man feel sorry for them the way they lose their heads. Big, burly drummers and farmers and ex-soldiers and high-collared dudes and sports that, a few moments before, were filling the car with noise and bragging, get so scared that their ears flop.</p>
|
||||
<p>There were very few people in the day coaches at that time of night, so we made a slim haul until we got to the sleeper. The Pullman conductor met me at one door while Jim was going round to the other one. He very politely informed me that I could not go into that car, as it did not belong to the railroad company, and, besides, the passengers had already been greatly disturbed by the shouting and firing. Never in all my life have I met with a finer instance of official dignity and reliance upon the power of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pullman’s great name. I jabbed my six-shooter so hard against <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Conductor’s front that I afterward found one of his vest buttons so firmly wedged in the end of the barrel that I had to shoot it out. He just shut up like a weak-springed knife and rolled down the car steps.</p>
|
||||
<p>There were very few people in the day coaches at that time of night, so we made a slim haul until we got to the sleeper. The Pullman conductor met me at one door while Jim was going round to the other one. He very politely informed me that I could not go into that car, as it did not belong to the railroad company, and, besides, the passengers had already been greatly disturbed by the shouting and firing. Never in all my life have I met with a finer instance of official dignity and reliance upon the power of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Pullman’s great name. I jabbed my six-shooter so hard against <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Conductor’s front that I afterward found one of his vest buttons so firmly wedged in the end of the barrel that I had to shoot it out. He just shut up like a weak-springed knife and rolled down the car steps.</p>
|
||||
<p>I opened the door of the sleeper and stepped inside. A big, fat old man came wabbling up to me, puffing and blowing. He had one coat-sleeve on and was trying to put his vest on over that. I don’t know who he thought I was.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Young man, young man,” says he, “you must keep cool and not get excited. Above everything, keep cool.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I can’t,” says I. “Excitement’s just eating me up.” And then I let out a yell and turned loose my forty-five through the skylight.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -54,7 +54,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Go slow,” says I. “That sounds too international to take in all at once. It’s like ‘thimble, thimble, who’s got the naturalization papers?’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Twas press despatches from Constantinople,” says Caligula. “You’ll see, six months from now. They’ll be confirmed by the monthly magazines; and then it won’t be long till you’ll notice ’em alongside the photos of the Mount Pelée eruption photos in the while-you-get-your-haircut weeklies. It’s all right, Pick. This African man Raisuli hides Burdick Harris up in the mountains, and advertises his price to the governments of different nations. Now, you wouldn’t think for a minute,” goes on Caligula, “that John Hay would have chipped in and helped this graft along if it wasn’t a square game, would you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, no,” says I. “I’ve always stood right in with Bryan’s policies, and I couldn’t consciously say a word against the Republican administration just now. But if Harris was a Greek, on what system of international protocols did Hay interfere?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It ain’t exactly set forth in the papers,” says Caligula. “I suppose it’s a matter of sentiment. You know he wrote this poem, ‘Little Breeches’; and them Greeks wear little or none. But anyhow, John Hay sends the Brooklyn and the Olympia over, and they cover Africa with thirty-inch guns. And then Hay cables after the health of the persona grata. ‘And how are they this morning?’ he wires. ‘Is Burdick Harris alive yet, or <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Raisuli dead?’ And the King of Morocco sends up the seventy thousand dollars, and they turn Burdick Harris loose. And there’s not half the hard feelings among the nations about this little kidnapping matter as there was about the peace congress. And Burdick Harris says to the reporters, in the Greek language, that he’s often heard about the United States, and he admires Roosevelt next to Raisuli, who is one of the whitest and most gentlemanly kidnappers that he ever worked alongside of. So you see, Pick,” winds up Caligula, “we’ve got the law of nations on our side. We’ll cut this colonel man out of the herd, and corral him in them little mountains, and stick up his heirs and assigns for ten thousand dollars.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It ain’t exactly set forth in the papers,” says Caligula. “I suppose it’s a matter of sentiment. You know he wrote this poem, ‘Little Breeches’; and them Greeks wear little or none. But anyhow, John Hay sends the Brooklyn and the Olympia over, and they cover Africa with thirty-inch guns. And then Hay cables after the health of the persona grata. ‘And how are they this morning?’ he wires. ‘Is Burdick Harris alive yet, or <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Raisuli dead?’ And the King of Morocco sends up the seventy thousand dollars, and they turn Burdick Harris loose. And there’s not half the hard feelings among the nations about this little kidnapping matter as there was about the peace congress. And Burdick Harris says to the reporters, in the Greek language, that he’s often heard about the United States, and he admires Roosevelt next to Raisuli, who is one of the whitest and most gentlemanly kidnappers that he ever worked alongside of. So you see, Pick,” winds up Caligula, “we’ve got the law of nations on our side. We’ll cut this colonel man out of the herd, and corral him in them little mountains, and stick up his heirs and assigns for ten thousand dollars.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, you seldom little redheaded territorial terror,” I answers, “you can’t bluff your uncle Tecumseh Pickens! I’ll be your company in this graft. But I misdoubt if you’ve absorbed the inwardness of this Burdick Harris case, Calig; and if on any morning we get a telegram from the Secretary of State asking about the health of the scheme, I propose to acquire the most propinquitous and celeritous mule in this section and gallop diplomatically over into the neighboring and peaceful nation of Alabama.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="hostages-to-momus-3" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
@ -69,7 +69,7 @@
|
||||
<p>We drove Colonel Rockingham over the mountain and up the side of it as far as the buggy could go. Then we tied the horse, and took our prisoner on foot up to the camp.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, colonel,” I says to him, “we’re after the ransom, me and my partner; and no harm will come to you if the King of Mor—if your friends send up the dust. In the meantime we are gentlemen the same as you. And if you give us your word not to try to escape, the freedom of the camp is yours.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I give you my word,” says the colonel.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” says I; “and now it’s eleven o’clock, and me and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Polk will proceed to inculcate the occasion with a few well-timed trivialities in the way of grub.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” says I; “and now it’s eleven o’clock, and me and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Polk will proceed to inculcate the occasion with a few well-timed trivialities in the way of grub.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thank you,” says the colonel; “I believe I could relish a slice of bacon and a plate of hominy.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But you won’t,” says I emphatic. “Not in this camp. We soar in higher regions than them occupied by your celebrated but repulsive dish.”</p>
|
||||
<p>While the colonel read his paper, me and Caligula took off our coats and went in for a little luncheon de luxe just to show him. Caligula was a fine cook of the Western brand. He could toast a buffalo or fricassee a couple of steers as easy as a woman could make a cup of tea. He was gifted in the way of knocking together edibles when haste and muscle and quantity was to be considered. He held the record west of the Arkansas River for frying pancakes with his left hand, broiling venison cutlets with his right, and skinning a rabbit with his teeth at the same time. But I could do things <span xml:lang="fr">en casserole</span> and <i xml:lang="fr">à la creole</i>, and handle the oil and tobasco as gently and nicely as a French chef.</p>
|
||||
@ -98,15 +98,15 @@
|
||||
<p>“Gentlemen,” says Colonel Rockingham, “allow me to introduce my brother, Captain Duval <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">C.</abbr> Rockingham, vice-president of the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Otherwise the King of Morocco,” says I. “I reckon you don’t mind my counting the ransom, just as a business formality.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, no, not exactly,” says the fat man, “not when it comes. I turned that matter over to our second vice-president. I was anxious after Brother Jackson’s safetiness. I reckon he’ll be along right soon. What does that lobster salad you mentioned taste like, Brother Jackson?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Vice-President,” says I, “you’ll oblige us by remaining here till the second <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">V.P.</abbr> arrives. This is a private rehearsal, and we don’t want any roadside speculators selling tickets.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Vice-President,” says I, “you’ll oblige us by remaining here till the second <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">V.P.</abbr> arrives. This is a private rehearsal, and we don’t want any roadside speculators selling tickets.”</p>
|
||||
<p>In half an hour Caligula sings out again:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sail ho! Looks like an apron on a broomstick.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I perambulated down the cliff again, and escorted up a man six foot three, with a sandy beard and no other dimension that you could notice. Thinks I to myself, if he’s got ten thousand dollars on his person it’s in one bill and folded lengthwise.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Patterson <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">G.</abbr> Coble, our second vice-president,” announces the colonel.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Patterson <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">G.</abbr> Coble, our second vice-president,” announces the colonel.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Glad to know you, gentlemen,” says this Coble. “I came up to disseminate the tidings that Major Tallahassee Tucker, our general passenger agent, is now negotiating a peachcrate full of our railroad bonds with the Perry County Bank for a loan. My dear Colonel Rockingham, was that chicken gumbo or cracked goobers on the bill of fare in your note? Me and the conductor of fifty-six was having a dispute about it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Another white wings on the rocks!” hollers Caligula. “If I see any more I’ll fire on ’em and swear they was torpedo-boats!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The guide goes down again, and convoys into the lair a person in blue overalls carrying an amount of inebriety and a lantern. I am so sure that this is Major Tucker that I don’t even ask him until we are up above; and then I discover that it is Uncle Timothy, the yard switchman at Edenville, who is sent ahead to flag our understandings with the gossip that Judge Pendergast, the railroad’s attorney, is in the process of mortgaging Colonel Rockingham’s farming lands to make up the ransom.</p>
|
||||
<p>While he is talking, two men crawl from under the bushes into camp, and Caligula, with no white flag to disinter him from his plain duty, draws his gun. But again Colonel Rockingham intervenes and introduces <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jones and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Batts, engineer and fireman of train number forty-two.</p>
|
||||
<p>While he is talking, two men crawl from under the bushes into camp, and Caligula, with no white flag to disinter him from his plain duty, draws his gun. But again Colonel Rockingham intervenes and introduces <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Jones and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Batts, engineer and fireman of train number forty-two.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Excuse us,” says Batts, “but me and Jim have hunted squirrels all over this mounting, and we don’t need no white flag. Was that straight, colonel, about the plum pudding and pineapples and real store cigars?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Towel on a fishing-pole in the offing!” howls Caligula. “Suppose it’s the firing line of the freight conductors and brakeman.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“My last trip down,” says I, wiping off my face. “If the <abbr>S. & E. T.</abbr> wants to run an excursion up here just because we kidnapped their president, let ’em. We’ll put out our sign. ‘The Kidnapper’s Café and Trainmen’s Home.’ ”</p>
|
||||
@ -124,7 +124,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Pick,” interrupts Caligula, mussing up his red hair, “what are you going to do with that chickenfeed?”</p>
|
||||
<p>I hands the money back to Major Tucker; and then I goes over to Colonel Rockingham and slaps him on the back.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Colonel,” says I, “I hope you’ve enjoyed our little joke. We don’t want to carry it too far. Kidnappers! Well, wouldn’t it tickle your uncle? My name’s Rhinegelder, and I’m a nephew of Chauncey Depew. My friend’s a second cousin of the editor of <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Puck</i>. So you can see. We are down South enjoying ourselves in our humorous way. Now, there’s two quarts of cognac to open yet, and then the joke’s over.”</p>
|
||||
<p>What’s the use to go into details? One or two will be enough. I remember Major Tallahassee Tucker playing on a jew’sharp, and Caligula waltzing with his head on the watch pocket of a tall baggage-master. I hesitate to refer to the cakewalk done by me and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Patterson <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">G.</abbr> Coble with Colonel Jackson <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">T.</abbr> Rockingham between us.</p>
|
||||
<p>What’s the use to go into details? One or two will be enough. I remember Major Tallahassee Tucker playing on a jew’sharp, and Caligula waltzing with his head on the watch pocket of a tall baggage-master. I hesitate to refer to the cakewalk done by me and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Patterson <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">G.</abbr> Coble with Colonel Jackson <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">T.</abbr> Rockingham between us.</p>
|
||||
<p>And even on the next morning, when you wouldn’t think it possible, there was a consolation for me and Caligula. We knew that Raisuli himself never made half the hit with Burdick Harris that we did with the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -10,11 +10,11 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">How It Started</h2>
|
||||
<p>“You had better move your chair a little further back,” said the old resident. “I saw one of the Judkinses go into the newspaper office just now with his gun, and there may be some shooting.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The reporter, who was in the town gathering information for the big edition, got his chair quickly behind a pillar of the hotel piazza, and asked what the trouble was about.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s an old feud of several years’ standing,” said the old resident, “between the editor and the Judkins family. About every two months they get to shooting at one another. Everybody in town knows about it. This is the way it started. The Judkinses live in another town, and one time a good-looking young lady of the family came here on a visit to a <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown gave her a big party—a regular high-toned affair, to get the young men acquainted with her. One young fellow fell in love with her, and sent a little poem to our paper, the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Observer</i>. This is the way it read:</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s an old feud of several years’ standing,” said the old resident, “between the editor and the Judkins family. About every two months they get to shooting at one another. Everybody in town knows about it. This is the way it started. The Judkinses live in another town, and one time a good-looking young lady of the family came here on a visit to a <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Brown. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Brown gave her a big party—a regular high-toned affair, to get the young men acquainted with her. One young fellow fell in love with her, and sent a little poem to our paper, the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Observer</i>. This is the way it read:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:poem">
|
||||
<header>
|
||||
<p>To <b>Miss Judkins</b><br/>
|
||||
(Visiting <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">T.</abbr> Montcalm Brown.)</p>
|
||||
(Visiting <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">T.</abbr> Montcalm Brown.)</p>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<span>We love to see her wear</span>
|
||||
@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
|
||||
<br/>
|
||||
<span>Nothing but a rose in her hair</span>
|
||||
<br/>
|
||||
<span class="i1">At <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown’s that night,</span>
|
||||
<span class="i1">At <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Brown’s that night,</span>
|
||||
<br/>
|
||||
<span>The fairest of them all</span>
|
||||
<br/>
|
||||
@ -42,7 +42,7 @@
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:poem">
|
||||
<header>
|
||||
<p>To <b>Miss Judkins</b><br/>
|
||||
(Visiting <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">T.</abbr> Montcalm Brown.)</p>
|
||||
(Visiting <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">T.</abbr> Montcalm Brown.)</p>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<span>We loved to see her wear</span>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -18,16 +18,16 @@
|
||||
<p>She rang for her maid and told her to bring a cup of hot tea, and then she dressed in a magnificent evening dress, left the maid to look after Dolly and Polly and got on the street car and went to the ball.</p>
|
||||
<p>George was at the ball enjoying himself very much. All the tony people were there, and music’s voluptuous swell rose like everything, and soft eyes looked love to eyes that spake again, and all that sort of thing.</p>
|
||||
<p>Among the guests was the Vicomte Carolus de Villiers, a distinguished French nobleman, who had been forced to leave Paris on account of some political intrigue, and who now worked on a large strawberry farm near Alvin.</p>
|
||||
<p>The viscount stood near a portiére picking his teeth, when he saw <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> <abbr>St.</abbr> Bibbs enter.</p>
|
||||
<p>The viscount stood near a portiére picking his teeth, when he saw <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> <abbr>St.</abbr> Bibbs enter.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was at her side in a moment, and had written his name opposite hers for every dance.</p>
|
||||
<p>George looked over and saw them, and gasped in surprise: “Jerusalem, that’s Molly!”</p>
|
||||
<p>He leaned against a velvet cul-de-sac near the doorway and watched them. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> <abbr>St.</abbr> Bibbs was the belle of the evening. Everybody crowded about her, and the viscount leaned over her and talked in his most engaging manner, fanning her with an old newspaper, as she smiled brightly upon him, a brilliant stream of wit, persiflage and repartee falling from her lips.</p>
|
||||
<p>He leaned against a velvet cul-de-sac near the doorway and watched them. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> <abbr>St.</abbr> Bibbs was the belle of the evening. Everybody crowded about her, and the viscount leaned over her and talked in his most engaging manner, fanning her with an old newspaper, as she smiled brightly upon him, a brilliant stream of wit, persiflage and repartee falling from her lips.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<span xml:lang="fr">Mon dieu!</span>” said the viscount to himself, as his ardent gaze rested upon her, “I wish I knew who she is.”</p>
|
||||
<p>At supper <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> <abbr>St.</abbr> Bibbs was the life of the gang. She engaged in a witty discussion with the brightest intellects around the table, completely overwhelming the boss joshers of the town. She conversed readily with gents from the wards, speaking their own dialect, and even answered without hesitation a question put to her by a man who had a sister attending the State University.</p>
|
||||
<p>At supper <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> <abbr>St.</abbr> Bibbs was the life of the gang. She engaged in a witty discussion with the brightest intellects around the table, completely overwhelming the boss joshers of the town. She conversed readily with gents from the wards, speaking their own dialect, and even answered without hesitation a question put to her by a man who had a sister attending the State University.</p>
|
||||
<p>George could scarcely believe that this fascinating, brilliant woman of the world was the quiet little wife he had left at home that evening.</p>
|
||||
<p>When the ball was over and the musicians had been stood off, George went up to his wife, feeling ashamed and repentant.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Molly,” he said, “forgive me. I didn’t know how beautiful and gay you could be in swell society. The next time our Longfellow Literary Coterie gives a fish fry at the Hook and Ladder Company Hall I’ll take you along.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> <abbr>St.</abbr> Bibbs took her husband’s arm with a sweet smile.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> <abbr>St.</abbr> Bibbs took her husband’s arm with a sweet smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right, George,” she said, “I just wanted you to see that this town can’t put up no society shindigs that are too high up for me to tackle. I once spent two weeks in Galveston, and I generally catch on to what’s proper as quick as anybody.”</p>
|
||||
<p>At present there are no two society people in town more sought after and admired than George <abbr>St.</abbr> Bibbs and his accomplished wife.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,13 +8,13 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="how-willie-saved-father" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">How Willie Saved Father</h2>
|
||||
<p>Willie Flint was a little Houston boy, six years of age. He was a beautiful child, with long golden curls and wondering, innocent blue eyes. His father was a respectable, sober citizen, who owned four or five large business buildings on Main Street. All day long <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Flint toiled among his renters, collecting what was due him, patching up broken window panes, nailing down loose boards and repairing places where the plastering had fallen off. At noon he would sit down upon the stairs of one of his buildings and eat the frugal dinner he had brought, wrapped up in a piece of newspaper, and think about the hard times. Gay and elegantly attired clerks and business men would pass up and down the stairs, but <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Flint did not envy them. He lived in a little cottage near the large trash pile known as “Tomato Can Heights,” on one of the principal residence streets of Houston. He was perfectly contented to live there with his wife and little boy Willie, and eat his frugal but wholesome fare and draw his $1,400 per month rent for his buildings. He was industrious and temperate, and hardly a day passed that he did not raise the rent of some of his offices, and lay by a few more dollars for a rainy day.</p>
|
||||
<p>One night <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Flint came home ill. He had been pasting up some cheap green wall paper on an empty stomach, or rather on the wall of one of his stores without eating, and it had not agreed with him. He went to bed flushed with fever, muttering: “God help my poor wife and child! What will become of them now?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Flint sent Willie to the other side of the room and drew a roll of greenbacks from under his pillow.</p>
|
||||
<p>Willie Flint was a little Houston boy, six years of age. He was a beautiful child, with long golden curls and wondering, innocent blue eyes. His father was a respectable, sober citizen, who owned four or five large business buildings on Main Street. All day long <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Flint toiled among his renters, collecting what was due him, patching up broken window panes, nailing down loose boards and repairing places where the plastering had fallen off. At noon he would sit down upon the stairs of one of his buildings and eat the frugal dinner he had brought, wrapped up in a piece of newspaper, and think about the hard times. Gay and elegantly attired clerks and business men would pass up and down the stairs, but <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Flint did not envy them. He lived in a little cottage near the large trash pile known as “Tomato Can Heights,” on one of the principal residence streets of Houston. He was perfectly contented to live there with his wife and little boy Willie, and eat his frugal but wholesome fare and draw his $1,400 per month rent for his buildings. He was industrious and temperate, and hardly a day passed that he did not raise the rent of some of his offices, and lay by a few more dollars for a rainy day.</p>
|
||||
<p>One night <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Flint came home ill. He had been pasting up some cheap green wall paper on an empty stomach, or rather on the wall of one of his stores without eating, and it had not agreed with him. He went to bed flushed with fever, muttering: “God help my poor wife and child! What will become of them now?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Flint sent Willie to the other side of the room and drew a roll of greenbacks from under his pillow.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Take this,” he said to his wife, “to the bank and deposit it. There is only $900 there. Some of my renters have not paid me yet, and five of them want awnings put up at the windows. He who sent the ravens to feed Elijah will provide for us. Come by the baker’s and get a nickel loaf of bread, and then hurry back and pray.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Willie was pretending to play with his Noah’s ark, by charging the animals for rent and water, and adding the amounts on his slate, but he heard what his father said.</p>
|
||||
<p>As his mother went out, he asked: “Mamma, is papa too sick to work?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, dear,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Flint; “he has a high fever, and I fear will be very ill.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, dear,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Flint; “he has a high fever, and I fear will be very ill.”</p>
|
||||
<p>After his mother had gone Willie put on his hat and slipped out the front door.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I want to do something to help my good, kind papa, who is sick,” he said to himself.</p>
|
||||
<p>He wandered up to Main Street and stood looking at the tall buildings that his poor father owned.</p>
|
||||
@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Poor little Willie. What could he do in the great, busy city to help his sick father?</p>
|
||||
<p>“I know what I will do,” he said to himself presently. “I will go up and raise the rent of several offices and that will make my papa feel better.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Willie toiled up three flights of stairs of one of his father’s largest buildings. He had to sit down quite often and rest, for he was short on wind.</p>
|
||||
<p>Away up to the third story was an office rented by two young men who had just begun to practice law. They had their sign out, and had given their note to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Flint for the first month’s rent. As Willie climbed the stairs the young lawyers were eating some cheese and crackers, with their feet on their desks, and six empty quart beer bottles stood upon a table. They were breathing hard, and one of them, who had a magnolia in his buttonhole, was telling a funny story about a girl.</p>
|
||||
<p>Away up to the third story was an office rented by two young men who had just begun to practice law. They had their sign out, and had given their note to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Flint for the first month’s rent. As Willie climbed the stairs the young lawyers were eating some cheese and crackers, with their feet on their desks, and six empty quart beer bottles stood upon a table. They were breathing hard, and one of them, who had a magnolia in his buttonhole, was telling a funny story about a girl.</p>
|
||||
<p>Presently one of them took his feet off his desk, opened his eyes and said:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jeeminy! Bob, get onto his Fauntleroyets.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The gentleman addressed as Bob also took his feet down, wiped his knife, with which he had been slicing cheese, on his hair, and looked around.</p>
|
||||
@ -42,12 +42,12 @@
|
||||
<p>“Call it fifty,” said Sam, lighting a black cigar, “at ninety days, and open the beer, Willie, and it’s a deal.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Bob. “I say, Willie, you may raise the rent to twenty dollars if you like, and run and tell your father, if it will do him any good.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, thank you,” cried Willie, and he ran home with a light heart, singing merrily.</p>
|
||||
<p>When he got home he found <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Flint sinking fast and muttering something about giving his wife a ten-dollar bill.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He is out of his head,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Flint, bursting into tears.</p>
|
||||
<p>When he got home he found <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Flint sinking fast and muttering something about giving his wife a ten-dollar bill.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He is out of his head,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Flint, bursting into tears.</p>
|
||||
<p>Willie ran to the bed and whispered to his father’s ear: “Papa, I have raised the rent of one of your offices from ten to twenty dollars.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You, my child!” said his father, laying his hand on Willie’s head. “God bless my brave little boy.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Flint sank into a peaceful slumber and his fever left him. The next day he was able to sit up, and feeling much stronger, when Willie told him whose rent it was he had raised.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Flint then fell dead.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Flint sank into a peaceful slumber and his fever left him. The next day he was able to sit up, and feeling much stronger, when Willie told him whose rent it was he had raised.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Flint then fell dead.</p>
|
||||
<p>Alas! messieurs, life is full of disappointments!</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,9 +9,9 @@
|
||||
<article id="hungry-henrys-ruse" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Hungry Henry’s Ruse</h2>
|
||||
<p>Hungry Henry: Madam, I am state agent for a new roller-action, unbreakable, double-elastic suspender. Can I show you some?</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Lonestreet: No, there ain’t no man on the place.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Lonestreet: No, there ain’t no man on the place.</p>
|
||||
<p>Hungry Henry: Well, then, I am also handling something unique in the way of a silvermounted, morocco leather, dog collar, with name engraved free of charge. Perhaps—</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Lonestreet: ’Tain’t no use. I ain’t got a dog.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Lonestreet: ’Tain’t no use. I ain’t got a dog.</p>
|
||||
<p>Hungry Henry: Hat’s what I wanted to know. Now fix me de best supper you’se kin, and do it quick or it won’t be healthy fur you. See?</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
|
||||
<article id="hush-money" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Hush Money</h2>
|
||||
<p>He was a great practical joker, and never lost a chance to get a good one on somebody. A few days ago he stopped a friend on Main Street and said, confidentially:</p>
|
||||
<p>“I never would have believed it, but I believe it my duty to make it known. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> ⸻, the alderman for our ward, has been taking hush money.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I never would have believed it, but I believe it my duty to make it known. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> ⸻, the alderman for our ward, has been taking hush money.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Impossible!” said his friend.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I tell you, it’s true, for I overheard the conversation and actually saw it handed over to him, and he took the money and put it in his pocket.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Then he went on without explaining any further, and the thing got talked around considerably for a day or two.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -64,7 +64,7 @@
|
||||
<p>The cattleman’s ingenuous mind refused to entertain Chad’s view of the case, and when, later, he came to apply the test, doubt entered not into his motives.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day, about noon, two men drove up to the ranch, alighted, hitched, and came in to dinner; standing and general invitations being the custom of the country. One of them was a great San Antonio doctor, whose costly services had been engaged by a wealthy cowman who had been laid low by an accidental bullet. He was now being driven back to the station to take the train back to town. After dinner Raidler took him aside, pushed a twenty-dollar bill against his hand, and said:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Doc, there’s a young chap in that room I guess has got a bad case of consumption. I’d like for you to look him over and see just how bad he is, and if we can do anything for him.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“How much was that dinner I just ate, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Raidler?” said the doctor bluffly, looking over his spectacles. Raidler returned the money to his pocket. The doctor immediately entered McGuire’s room, and the cattleman seated himself upon a heap of saddles on the gallery, ready to reproach himself in the event the verdict should be unfavourable.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How much was that dinner I just ate, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Raidler?” said the doctor bluffly, looking over his spectacles. Raidler returned the money to his pocket. The doctor immediately entered McGuire’s room, and the cattleman seated himself upon a heap of saddles on the gallery, ready to reproach himself in the event the verdict should be unfavourable.</p>
|
||||
<p>In ten minutes the doctor came briskly out. “Your man,” he said promptly, “is as sound as a new dollar. His lungs are better than mine. Respiration, temperature, and pulse normal. Chest expansion four inches. Not a sign of weakness anywhere. Of course I didn’t examine for the bacillus, but it isn’t there. You can put my name to the diagnosis. Even cigarettes and a vilely close room haven’t hurt him. Coughs, does he? Well, you tell him it isn’t necessary. You asked if there is anything we could do for him. Well, I advise you to set him digging postholes or breaking mustangs. There’s our team ready. Good day, sir.” And like a puff of wholesome, blustery wind the doctor was off.</p>
|
||||
<p>Raidler reached out and plucked a leaf from a mesquite bush by the railing, and began chewing it thoughtfully.</p>
|
||||
<p>The branding season was at hand, and the next morning Ross Hargis, foreman of the outfit, was mustering his force of some twenty-five men at the ranch, ready to start for the San Carlos range, where the work was to begin. By six o’clock the horses were all saddled, the grub wagon ready, and the cowpunchers were swinging themselves upon their mounts, when Raidler bade them wait. A boy was bringing up an extra pony, bridled and saddled, to the gate. Raidler walked to McGuire’s room and threw open the door. McGuire was lying on his cot, not yet dressed, smoking.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -15,22 +15,22 @@
|
||||
<p>“One day in the papier-mâché palm room of a chloral hydrate and hops agency in a side street about eight inches off Broadway me and Andy had thrust upon us the acquaintance of a New Yorker. We had beer together until we discovered that each of us knew a man named Hellsmith, traveling for a stove factory in Duluth. This caused us to remark that the world was a very small place, and then this New Yorker busts his string and takes off his tin foil and excelsior packing and starts in giving us his Ellen Terris, beginning with the time he used to sell shoelaces to the Indians on the spot where Tammany Hall now stands.</p>
|
||||
<p>“This New Yorker had made his money keeping a cigar store in Beekman Street, and he hadn’t been above Fourteenth Street in ten years. Moreover, he had whiskers, and the time had gone by when a true sport will do anything to a man with whiskers. No grafter except a boy who is soliciting subscribers to an illustrated weekly to win the prize air rifle, or a widow, would have the heart to tamper with the man behind with the razor. He was a typical city Reub—I’d bet the man hadn’t been out of sight of a skyscraper in twenty-five years.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, presently this metropolitan backwoodsman pulls out a roll of bills with an old blue sleeve elastic fitting tight around it and opens it up.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘There’s $5,000, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Peters,’ says he, shoving it over the table to me, ‘saved during my fifteen years of business. Put that in your pocket and keep it for me, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Peters. I’m glad to meet you gentlemen from the West, and I may take a drop too much. I want you to take care of my money for me. Now, let’s have another beer.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘There’s $5,000, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Peters,’ says he, shoving it over the table to me, ‘saved during my fifteen years of business. Put that in your pocket and keep it for me, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Peters. I’m glad to meet you gentlemen from the West, and I may take a drop too much. I want you to take care of my money for me. Now, let’s have another beer.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You’d better keep this yourself,’ says I. ‘We are strangers to you, and you can’t trust everybody you meet. Put your roll back in your pocket,’ says I. ‘And you’d better run along home before some farmhand from the Kaw River bottoms strolls in here and sells you a copper mine.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ says Whiskers. ‘I guess Little Old New York can take care of herself. I guess I know a man that’s on the square when I see him. I’ve always found the Western people all right. I ask you as a favor, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Peters,’ says he, ‘to keep that roll in your pocket for me. I know a gentleman when I see him. And now let’s have some more beer.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ says Whiskers. ‘I guess Little Old New York can take care of herself. I guess I know a man that’s on the square when I see him. I’ve always found the Western people all right. I ask you as a favor, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Peters,’ says he, ‘to keep that roll in your pocket for me. I know a gentleman when I see him. And now let’s have some more beer.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“In about ten minutes this fall of manna leans back in his chair and snores. Andy looks at me and says: ‘I reckon I’d better stay with him for five minutes or so, in case the waiter comes in.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I went out the side door and walked half a block up the street. And then I came back and sat down at the table.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Andy,’ says I, ‘I can’t do it. It’s too much like swearing off taxes. I can’t go off with this man’s money without doing something to earn it like taking advantage of the Bankrupt act or leaving a bottle of eczema lotion in his pocket to make it look more like a square deal.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Well,’ says Andy, ‘it does seem kind of hard on one’s professional pride to lope off with a bearded pard’s competency, especially after he has nominated you custodian of his bundle in the sappy insouciance of his urban indiscrimination. Suppose we wake him up and see if we can formulate some commercial sophistry by which he will be enabled to give us both his money and a good excuse.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“We wakes up Whiskers. He stretches himself and yawns out the hypothesis that he must have dropped off for a minute. And then he says he wouldn’t mind sitting in at a little gentleman’s game of poker. He used to play some when he attended high school in Brooklyn; and as he was out for a good time, why—and so forth.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Andy brights up a little at that, for it looks like it might be a solution to our financial troubles. So we all three go to our hotel further down Broadway and have the cards and chips brought up to Andy’s room. I tried once more to make this Babe in the Horticultural Gardens take his five thousand. But no.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Keep that little roll for me, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Peters,’ says he, ‘and oblige. I’ll ask you fer it when I want it. I guess I know when I’m among friends. A man that’s done business on Beekman Street for twenty years, right in the heart of the wisest old village on earth, ought to know what he’s about. I guess I can tell a gentleman from a con man or a flimflammer when I meet him. I’ve got some odd change in my clothes—enough to start the game with, I guess.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Keep that little roll for me, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Peters,’ says he, ‘and oblige. I’ll ask you fer it when I want it. I guess I know when I’m among friends. A man that’s done business on Beekman Street for twenty years, right in the heart of the wisest old village on earth, ought to know what he’s about. I guess I can tell a gentleman from a con man or a flimflammer when I meet him. I’ve got some odd change in my clothes—enough to start the game with, I guess.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“He goes through his pockets and rains $20 gold certificates on the table till it looked like a $10,000 ‘Autumn Day in a Lemon Grove’ picture by Turner in the salons. Andy almost smiled.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The first round that was dealt, this boulevardier slaps down his hand, claims low and jack and big casino and rakes in the pot.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Andy always took a pride in his poker playing. He got up from the table and looked sadly out of the window at the street cars.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Well, gentlemen,’ says the cigar man, ‘I don’t blame you for not wanting to play. I’ve forgotten the fine points of the game, I guess, it’s been so long since I indulged. Now, how long are you gentlemen going to be in the city?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I told him about a week longer. He says that’ll suit him fine. His cousin is coming over from Brooklyn that evening and they are going to see the sights of New York. His cousin, he says, is in the artificial limb and lead casket business, and hasn’t crossed the bridge in eight years. They expect to have the time of their lives, and he winds up by asking me to keep his roll of money for him till next day. I tried to make him take it, but it only insulted him to mention it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’ll use what I’ve got in loose change,’ says he. ‘You keep the rest for me. I’ll drop in on you and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tucker tomorrow afternoon about 6 or 7,’ says he, ‘and we’ll have dinner together. Be good.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’ll use what I’ve got in loose change,’ says he. ‘You keep the rest for me. I’ll drop in on you and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Tucker tomorrow afternoon about 6 or 7,’ says he, ‘and we’ll have dinner together. Be good.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“After Whiskers had gone Andy looked at me curious and doubtful.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Well, Jeff,’ says he, ‘it looks like the ravens are trying to feed us two Elijahs so hard that if we turned ’em down again we ought to have the Audubon Society after us. It won’t do to put the crown aside too often. I know this is something like paternalism, but don’t you think Opportunity has skinned its knuckles about enough knocking at our door?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I put my feet up on the table and my hands in my pockets, which is an attitude unfavorable to frivolous thoughts.</p>
|
||||
@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Your arguments,’ says Andy, ‘are past criticism or comprehension. No, we can’t walk off with the money—as things now stand. I admire your conscious way of doing business, Jeff,’ says Andy, ‘and I wouldn’t propose anything that wasn’t square in line with your theories of morality and initiative.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘But I’ll be away tonight and most of tomorrow Jeff,’ says Andy. ‘I’ve got some business affairs that I want to attend to. When this free greenbacks party comes in tomorrow afternoon hold him here till I arrive. We’ve all got an engagement for dinner, you know.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, sir, about 5 the next afternoon in trips the cigar man, with his eyes half open.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Been having a glorious time, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Peters,’ says he. ‘Took in all the sights. I tell you New York is the onliest only. Now if you don’t mind,’ says he, ‘I’ll lie down on that couch and doze off for about nine minutes before <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tucker comes. I’m not used to being up all night. And tomorrow, if you don’t mind, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Peters, I’ll take that five thousand. I met a man last night that’s got a sure winner at the racetrack tomorrow. Excuse me for being so impolite as to go to sleep, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Peters.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Been having a glorious time, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Peters,’ says he. ‘Took in all the sights. I tell you New York is the onliest only. Now if you don’t mind,’ says he, ‘I’ll lie down on that couch and doze off for about nine minutes before <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Tucker comes. I’m not used to being up all night. And tomorrow, if you don’t mind, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Peters, I’ll take that five thousand. I met a man last night that’s got a sure winner at the racetrack tomorrow. Excuse me for being so impolite as to go to sleep, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Peters.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“And so this inhabitant of the second city in the world reposes himself and begins to snore, while I sit there musing over things and wishing I was back in the West, where you could always depend on a customer fighting to keep his money hard enough to let your conscience take it from him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“At half-past 5 Andy comes in and sees the sleeping form.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’ve been over to Trenton,’ says Andy, pulling a document out of his pocket. ‘I think I’ve got this matter fixed up all right, Jeff. Look at that.’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Jeff Peters has been engaged in as many schemes for making money as there are recipes for cooking rice in Charleston, <abbr epub:type="z3998:place">SC</abbr>.</p>
|
||||
<p>Best of all I like to hear him tell of his earlier days when he sold liniments and cough cures on street corners, living hand to mouth, heart to heart with the people, throwing heads or tails with fortune for his last coin.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I struck Fisher Hill, Arkansaw,” said he, “in a buckskin suit, moccasins, long hair and a thirty-carat diamond ring that I got from an actor in Texarkana. I don’t know what he ever did with the pocket knife I swapped him for it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Waugh-hoo, the celebrated Indian medicine man. I carried only one best bet just then, and that was Resurrection Bitters. It was made of life-giving plants and herbs accidentally discovered by Ta-qua-la, the beautiful wife of the chief of the Choctaw Nation, while gathering truck to garnish a platter of boiled dog for the annual corn dance.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Waugh-hoo, the celebrated Indian medicine man. I carried only one best bet just then, and that was Resurrection Bitters. It was made of life-giving plants and herbs accidentally discovered by Ta-qua-la, the beautiful wife of the chief of the Choctaw Nation, while gathering truck to garnish a platter of boiled dog for the annual corn dance.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Business hadn’t been good in the last town, so I only had five dollars. I went to the Fisher Hill druggist and he credited me for half a gross of eight-ounce bottles and corks. I had the labels and ingredients in my valise, left over from the last town. Life began to look rosy again after I got in my hotel room with the water running from the tap, and the Resurrection Bitters lining up on the table by the dozen.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Fake? No, sir. There was two dollars’ worth of fluid extract of cinchona and a dime’s worth of aniline in that half-gross of bitters. I’ve gone through towns years afterwards and had folks ask for ’em again.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I hired a wagon that night and commenced selling the bitters on Main Street. Fisher Hill was a low, malarial town; and a compound hypothetical pneumocardiac anti-scorbutic tonic was just what I diagnosed the crowd as needing. The bitters started off like sweetbreads-on-toast at a vegetarian dinner. I had sold two dozen at fifty cents apiece when I felt somebody pull my coat tail. I knew what that meant; so I climbed down and sneaked a five dollar bill into the hand of a man with a German silver star on his lapel.</p>
|
||||
@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I have not,’ says I. ‘I didn’t know you had a city. If I can find it tomorrow I’ll take one out if it’s necessary.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’ll have to close you up till you do,’ says the constable.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I quit selling and went back to the hotel. I was talking to the landlord about it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, you won’t stand no show in Fisher Hill,’ says he. ‘<abbr>Dr.</abbr> Hoskins, the only doctor here, is a brother-in-law of the Mayor, and they won’t allow no fake doctor to practice in town.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, you won’t stand no show in Fisher Hill,’ says he. ‘<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Hoskins, the only doctor here, is a brother-in-law of the Mayor, and they won’t allow no fake doctor to practice in town.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I don’t practice medicine,’ says I, ‘I’ve got a State peddler’s license, and I take out a city one wherever they demand it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I went to the Mayor’s office the next morning and they told me he hadn’t showed up yet. They didn’t know when he’d be down. So Doc Waugh-hoo hunches down again in a hotel chair and lights a jimpson-weed regalia, and waits.</p>
|
||||
<p>“By and by a young man in a blue necktie slips into the chair next to me and asks the time.</p>
|
||||
@ -33,20 +33,20 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘As man to man,’ says I, ‘I’ll go and look him over.’ So I put a bottle of Resurrection Bitters in my pocket and goes up on the hill to the mayor’s mansion, the finest house in town, with a mansard roof and two cast iron dogs on the lawn.</p>
|
||||
<p>“This Mayor Banks was in bed all but his whiskers and feet. He was making internal noises that would have had everybody in San Francisco hiking for the parks. A young man was standing by the bed holding a cup of water.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Doc,’ says the Mayor, ‘I’m awful sick. I’m about to die. Can’t you do nothing for me?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Mayor,’ says I, ‘I’m not a regular preordained disciple of <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">S. Q.</abbr> Lapius. I never took a course in a medical college,’ says I. ‘I’ve just come as a fellow man to see if I could be off assistance.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’m deeply obliged,’ says he. ‘Doc Waugh-hoo, this is my nephew, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Biddle. He has tried to alleviate my distress, but without success. Oh, Lordy! Ow-ow-ow!!’ he sings out.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I nods at <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Biddle and sets down by the bed and feels the mayor’s pulse. ‘Let me see your liver—your tongue, I mean,’ says I. Then I turns up the lids of his eyes and looks close that the pupils of ’em.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Mayor,’ says I, ‘I’m not a regular preordained disciple of <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">S. Q.</abbr> Lapius. I never took a course in a medical college,’ says I. ‘I’ve just come as a fellow man to see if I could be off assistance.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’m deeply obliged,’ says he. ‘Doc Waugh-hoo, this is my nephew, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Biddle. He has tried to alleviate my distress, but without success. Oh, Lordy! Ow-ow-ow!!’ he sings out.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I nods at <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Biddle and sets down by the bed and feels the mayor’s pulse. ‘Let me see your liver—your tongue, I mean,’ says I. Then I turns up the lids of his eyes and looks close that the pupils of ’em.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘How long have you been sick?’ I asked.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I was taken down—ow-ouch—last night,’ says the Mayor. ‘Gimme something for it, doc, won’t you?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fiddle,’ says I, ‘raise the window shade a bit, will you?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fiddle,’ says I, ‘raise the window shade a bit, will you?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Biddle,’ says the young man. ‘Do you feel like you could eat some ham and eggs, Uncle James?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Mayor,’ says I, after laying my ear to his right shoulder blade and listening, ‘you’ve got a bad attack of super-inflammation of the right clavicle of the harpsichord!’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Mayor,’ says I, after laying my ear to his right shoulder blade and listening, ‘you’ve got a bad attack of super-inflammation of the right clavicle of the harpsichord!’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Good Lord!’ says he, with a groan, ‘Can’t you rub something on it, or set it or anything?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I picks up my hat and starts for the door.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You ain’t going, doc?’ says the Mayor with a howl. ‘You ain’t going away and leave me to die with this—superfluity of the clapboards, are you?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Common humanity, <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Whoa-ha,’ says <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Biddle, ‘ought to prevent your deserting a fellow-human in distress.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr>Dr.</abbr> Waugh-hoo, when you get through plowing,’ says I. And then I walks back to the bed and throws back my long hair.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Mayor,’ says I, ‘there is only one hope for you. Drugs will do you no good. But there is another power higher yet, although drugs are high enough,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Common humanity, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Whoa-ha,’ says <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Biddle, ‘ought to prevent your deserting a fellow-human in distress.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Waugh-hoo, when you get through plowing,’ says I. And then I walks back to the bed and throws back my long hair.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Mayor,’ says I, ‘there is only one hope for you. Drugs will do you no good. But there is another power higher yet, although drugs are high enough,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘And what is that?’ says he.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Scientific demonstrations,’ says I. ‘The triumph of mind over sarsaparilla. The belief that there is no pain and sickness except what is produced when we ain’t feeling well. Declare yourself in arrears. Demonstrate.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘What is this paraphernalia you speak of, Doc?’ says the Mayor. ‘You ain’t a Socialist, are you?’</p>
|
||||
@ -64,29 +64,29 @@
|
||||
<p>“I made a few passes with my hands.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Now,’ says I, ‘the inflammation’s gone. The right lobe of the perihelion has subsided. You’re getting sleepy. You can’t hold your eyes open any longer. For the present the disease is checked. Now, you are asleep.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The Mayor shut his eyes slowly and began to snore.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You observe, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tiddle,’ says I, ‘the wonders of modern science.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Biddle,’ says he, ‘When will you give uncle the rest of the treatment, <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Pooh-pooh?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You observe, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Tiddle,’ says I, ‘the wonders of modern science.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Biddle,’ says he, ‘When will you give uncle the rest of the treatment, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Pooh-pooh?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Waugh-hoo,’ says I. ‘I’ll come back at eleven tomorrow. When he wakes up give him eight drops of turpentine and three pounds of steak. Good morning.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The next morning I was back on time. ‘Well, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Riddle,’ says I, when he opened the bedroom door, ‘and how is uncle this morning?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The next morning I was back on time. ‘Well, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Riddle,’ says I, when he opened the bedroom door, ‘and how is uncle this morning?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘He seems much better,’ says the young man.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The mayor’s color and pulse was fine. I gave him another treatment, and he said the last of the pain left him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Now,’ says I, ‘you’d better stay in bed for a day or two, and you’ll be all right. It’s a good thing I happened to be in Fisher Hill, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Mayor,’ says I, ‘for all the remedies in the cornucopia that the regular schools of medicine use couldn’t have saved you. And now that error has flew and pain proved a perjurer, let’s allude to a cheerfuller subject—say the fee of $250. No checks, please, I hate to write my name on the back of a check almost as bad as I do on the front.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Now,’ says I, ‘you’d better stay in bed for a day or two, and you’ll be all right. It’s a good thing I happened to be in Fisher Hill, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Mayor,’ says I, ‘for all the remedies in the cornucopia that the regular schools of medicine use couldn’t have saved you. And now that error has flew and pain proved a perjurer, let’s allude to a cheerfuller subject—say the fee of $250. No checks, please, I hate to write my name on the back of a check almost as bad as I do on the front.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’ve got the cash here,’ says the mayor, pulling a pocket book from under his pillow.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He counts out five fifty-dollar notes and holds ’em in his hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Bring the receipt,’ he says to Biddle.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I signed the receipt and the mayor handed me the money. I put it in my inside pocket careful.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Now do your duty, officer,’ says the mayor, grinning much unlike a sick man.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Biddle lays his hand on my arm.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You’re under arrest, <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Waugh-hoo, alias Peters,’ says he, ‘for practising medicine without authority under the State law.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Biddle lays his hand on my arm.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You’re under arrest, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Waugh-hoo, alias Peters,’ says he, ‘for practising medicine without authority under the State law.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Who are you?’ I asks.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’ll tell you who he is,’ says <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Mayor, sitting up in bed. ‘He’s a detective employed by the State Medical Society. He’s been following you over five counties. He came to me yesterday and we fixed up this scheme to catch you. I guess you won’t do any more doctoring around these parts, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fakir. What was it you said I had, doc?’ the mayor laughs, ‘compound—well, it wasn’t softening of the brain, I guess, anyway.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’ll tell you who he is,’ says <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Mayor, sitting up in bed. ‘He’s a detective employed by the State Medical Society. He’s been following you over five counties. He came to me yesterday and we fixed up this scheme to catch you. I guess you won’t do any more doctoring around these parts, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Fakir. What was it you said I had, doc?’ the mayor laughs, ‘compound—well, it wasn’t softening of the brain, I guess, anyway.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘A detective,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Correct,’ says Biddle. ‘I’ll have to turn you over to the sheriff.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Let’s see you do it,’ says I, and I grabs Biddle by the throat and half throws him out the window, but he pulls a gun and sticks it under my chin, and I stand still. Then he puts handcuffs on me, and takes the money out of my pocket.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I witness,’ says he, ‘that they’re the same bank bills that you and I marked, Judge Banks. I’ll turn them over to the sheriff when we get to his office, and he’ll send you a receipt. They’ll have to be used as evidence in the case.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘All right, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Biddle,’ says the mayor. ‘And now, Doc Waugh-hoo,’ he goes on, ‘why don’t you demonstrate? Can’t you pull the cork out of your magnetism with your teeth and hocus-pocus them handcuffs off?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘All right, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Biddle,’ says the mayor. ‘And now, Doc Waugh-hoo,’ he goes on, ‘why don’t you demonstrate? Can’t you pull the cork out of your magnetism with your teeth and hocus-pocus them handcuffs off?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Come on, officer,’ says I, dignified. ‘I may as well make the best of it.’ And then I turns to old Banks and rattles my chains.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Mayor,’ says I, ‘the time will come soon when you’ll believe that personal magnetism is a success. And you’ll be sure that it succeeded in this case, too.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Mayor,’ says I, ‘the time will come soon when you’ll believe that personal magnetism is a success. And you’ll be sure that it succeeded in this case, too.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“And I guess it did.</p>
|
||||
<p>“When we got nearly to the gate, I says: ‘We might meet somebody now, Andy. I reckon you better take ’em off, and—’ Hey? Why, of course it was Andy Tucker. That was his scheme; and that’s how we got the capital to go into business together.”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Two minutes of waiting brought a tired “paint” pony single-footing into camp. A gangling youth of twenty lolled in the saddle. Of the “Muriel” whom he had been addressing, nothing was to be seen.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hi, fellows!” shouted the rider cheerfully. “This here’s a letter fer Lieutenant Manning.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He dismounted, unsaddled, dropped the coils of his stake-rope, and got his hobbles from the saddle-horn. While Lieutenant Manning, in command, was reading the letter, the newcomer, rubbed solicitously at some dried mud in the loops of the hobbles, showing a consideration for the forelegs of his mount.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Boys,” said the lieutenant, waving his hand to the rangers, “this is <abbr>Mr.</abbr> James Hayes. He’s a new member of the company. Captain McLean sends him down from El Paso. The boys will see that you have some supper, Hayes, as soon as you get your pony hobbled.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Boys,” said the lieutenant, waving his hand to the rangers, “this is <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> James Hayes. He’s a new member of the company. Captain McLean sends him down from El Paso. The boys will see that you have some supper, Hayes, as soon as you get your pony hobbled.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The recruit was received cordially by the rangers. Still, they observed him shrewdly and with suspended judgment. Picking a comrade on the border is done with ten times the care and discretion with which a girl chooses a sweetheart. On your “side-kicker’s” nerve, loyalty, aim, and coolness your own life may depend many times.</p>
|
||||
<p>After a hearty supper Hayes joined the smokers about the fire. His appearance did not settle all the questions in the minds of his brother rangers. They saw simply a loose, lank youth with tow-coloured, sunburned hair and a berry-brown, ingenuous face that wore a quizzical, good-natured smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Fellows,” said the new ranger, “I’m goin’ to interduce to you a lady friend of mine. Ain’t ever heard anybody call her a beauty, but you’ll all admit she’s got some fine points about her. Come along, Muriel!”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
|
||||
<p>I found myself in Texas recently, revisiting old places and vistas. At a sheep ranch where I had sojourned many years ago, I stopped for a week. And, as all visitors do, I heartily plunged into the business at hand, which happened to be that of dipping the sheep.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, this process is so different from ordinary human baptism that it deserves a word of itself. A vast iron cauldron with half the fires of Avernus beneath it is partly filled with water that soon boils furiously. Into that is cast concentrated lye, lime, and sulphur, which is allowed to stew and fume until the witches’ broth is strong enough to scorch the third arm of Palladino herself.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then this concentrated brew is mixed in a long, deep vat with cubic gallons of hot water, and the sheep are caught by their hind legs and flung into the compound. After being thoroughly ducked by means of a forked pole in the hands of a gentleman detailed for that purpose, they are allowed to clamber up an incline into a corral and dry or die, as the state of their constitutions may decree. If you ever caught an able-bodied, two-year-old mutton by the hind legs and felt the 750 volts of kicking that he can send though your arm seventeen times before you can hurl him into the vat, you will, of course, hope that he may die instead of dry.</p>
|
||||
<p>But this is merely to explain why Bud Oakley and I gladly stretched ourselves on the bank of the nearby charco after the dipping, glad for the welcome inanition and pure contact with the earth after our muscle-racking labours. The flock was a small one, and we finished at three in the afternoon; so Bud brought from the morral on his saddle horn, coffee and a coffeepot and a big hunk of bread and some side bacon. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Mills, the ranch owner and my old friend, rode away to the ranch with his force of Mexican <i xml:lang="es">trabajadores</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>But this is merely to explain why Bud Oakley and I gladly stretched ourselves on the bank of the nearby charco after the dipping, glad for the welcome inanition and pure contact with the earth after our muscle-racking labours. The flock was a small one, and we finished at three in the afternoon; so Bud brought from the morral on his saddle horn, coffee and a coffeepot and a big hunk of bread and some side bacon. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Mills, the ranch owner and my old friend, rode away to the ranch with his force of Mexican <i xml:lang="es">trabajadores</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>While the bacon was frizzling nicely, there was the sound of horses’ hoofs behind us. Bud’s six-shooter lay in its scabbard ten feet away from his hand. He paid not the slightest heed to the approaching horseman. This attitude of a Texas ranchman was so different from the old-time custom that I marvelled. Instinctively I turned to inspect the possible foe that menaced us in the rear. I saw a horseman dressed in black, who might have been a lawyer or a parson or an undertaker, trotting peaceably along the road by the arroyo.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bud noticed my precautionary movement and smiled sarcastically and sorrowfully.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’ve been away too long,” said he. “You don’t need to look around any more when anybody gallops up behind you in this state, unless something hits you in the back; and even then it’s liable to be only a bunch of tracts or a petition to sign against the trusts. I never looked at that hombre that rode by; but I’ll bet a quart of sheep dip that he’s some double-dyed son of a popgun out rounding up prohibition votes.”</p>
|
||||
@ -23,12 +23,12 @@
|
||||
<p>“I was going on,” continued Bud, “while this coffee is boiling, to describe to you a case of genuine law and order that I knew of once in the times when cases was decided in the chambers of a six-shooter instead of a supreme court.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’ve heard of old Ben Kirkman, the cattle king? His ranch run from the Nueces to the Rio Grande. In them days, as you know, there was cattle barons and cattle kings. The difference was this: when a cattleman went to San Antone and bought beer for the newspaper reporters and only give them the number of cattle he actually owned, they wrote him up for a baron. When he bought ’em champagne wine and added in the amount of cattle he had stole, they called him a king.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Luke Summers was one of his range bosses. And down to the king’s ranch comes one day a bunch of these Oriental people from New York or Kansas City or thereabouts. Luke was detailed with a squad to ride about with ’em, and see that the rattlesnakes got fair warning when they was coming, and drive the deer out of their way. Among the bunch was a black-eyed girl that wore a number two shoe. That’s all I noticed about her. But Luke must have seen more, for he married her one day before the <i xml:lang="es">caballard</i> started back, and went over on Canada Verde and set up a ranch of his own. I’m skipping over the sentimental stuff on purpose, because I never saw or wanted to see any of it. And Luke takes me along with him because we was old friends and I handled cattle to suit him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m skipping over much what followed, because I never saw or wanted to see any of it—but three years afterward there was a boy kid stumbling and blubbering around the galleries and floors of Luke’s ranch. I never had no use for kids; but it seems they did. And I’m skipping over much what followed until one day out to the ranch drives in hacks and buckboards a lot of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Summers’s friends from the East—a sister or so and two or three men. One looked like an uncle to somebody; and one looked like nothing; and the other one had on corkscrew pants and spoke in a tone of voice. I never liked a man who spoke in a tone of voice.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m skipping over much what followed, because I never saw or wanted to see any of it—but three years afterward there was a boy kid stumbling and blubbering around the galleries and floors of Luke’s ranch. I never had no use for kids; but it seems they did. And I’m skipping over much what followed until one day out to the ranch drives in hacks and buckboards a lot of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Summers’s friends from the East—a sister or so and two or three men. One looked like an uncle to somebody; and one looked like nothing; and the other one had on corkscrew pants and spoke in a tone of voice. I never liked a man who spoke in a tone of voice.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m skipping over much what followed; but one afternoon when I rides up to the ranch house to get some orders about a drove of beeves that was to be shipped, I hears something like a popgun go off. I waits at the hitching rack, not wishing to intrude on private affairs. In a little while Luke comes out and gives some orders to some of his Mexican hands, and they go and hitch up sundry and divers vehicles; and mighty soon out comes one of the sisters or so and some of the two or three men. But two of the two or three men carries between ’em the corkscrew man who spoke in a tone of voice, and lays him flat down in one of the wagons. And they all might have been seen wending their way away.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Bud,’ says Luke to me, ‘I want you to fix up a little and go up to San Antone with me.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Let me get on my Mexican spurs,’ says I, ‘and I’m your company.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“One of the sisters or so seems to have stayed at the ranch with <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Summers and the kid. We rides to Encinal and catches the International, and hits San Antone in the morning. After breakfast Luke steers me straight to the office of a lawyer. They go in a room and talk and then come out.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, there won’t be any trouble, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Summers,’ says the lawyer. ‘I’ll acquaint Judge Simmons with the facts today; and the matter will be put through as promptly as possible. Law and order reigns in this state as swift and sure as any in the country.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“One of the sisters or so seems to have stayed at the ranch with <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Summers and the kid. We rides to Encinal and catches the International, and hits San Antone in the morning. After breakfast Luke steers me straight to the office of a lawyer. They go in a room and talk and then come out.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, there won’t be any trouble, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Summers,’ says the lawyer. ‘I’ll acquaint Judge Simmons with the facts today; and the matter will be put through as promptly as possible. Law and order reigns in this state as swift and sure as any in the country.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’ll wait for the decree if it won’t take over half an hour,’ says Luke.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Tut, tut,’ says the lawyer man. ‘Law must take its course. Come back day after tomorrow at half-past nine.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“At that time me and Luke shows up, and the lawyer hands him a folded document. And Luke writes him out a check.</p>
|
||||
@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Bud,’ says he, in a pained style, ‘that child is the one thing I have to live for. <em>She</em> may go; but the boy is mine!—think of it—I have cus-to-dy of the child.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘All right,’ says I. ‘If it’s the law, let’s abide by it. But I think,’ says I, ‘that Judge Simmons might have used exemplary clemency, or whatever is the legal term, in our case.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“You see, I wasn’t inveigled much into the desirableness of having infants around a ranch, except the kind that feed themselves and sell for so much on the hoof when they grow up. But Luke was struck with that sort of parental foolishness that I never could understand. All the way riding from the station back to the ranch, he kept pulling that decree out of his pocket and laying his finger on the back of it and reading off to me the sum and substance of it. ‘Cus-to-dy of the child, Bud,’ says he. ‘Don’t forget it—cus-to-dy of the child.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“But when we hits the ranch we finds our decree of court obviated, <span xml:lang="la">nolle prossed</span>, and remanded for trial. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Summers and the kid was gone. They tell us that an hour after me and Luke had started for San Antone she had a team hitched and lit out for the nearest station with her trunks and the youngster.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But when we hits the ranch we finds our decree of court obviated, <span xml:lang="la">nolle prossed</span>, and remanded for trial. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Summers and the kid was gone. They tell us that an hour after me and Luke had started for San Antone she had a team hitched and lit out for the nearest station with her trunks and the youngster.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Luke takes out his decree once more and reads off its emoluments.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘It ain’t possible, Bud,’ says he, ‘for this to be. It’s contrary to law and order. It’s wrote as plain as day here—“Cus-to-dy of the child.” ’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘There is what you might call a human leaning,’ says I, ‘toward smashing ’em both—not to mention the child.’</p>
|
||||
@ -86,7 +86,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Thanky, ma’am,’ says I, and I takes up the trail again.</p>
|
||||
<p>“By and by I thinks I’ll shed etiquette; and I picks up one of them boys with blue clothes and yellow buttons in front, and he leads me to what he calls the caffay breakfast room. And the first thing I lays my eyes on when I go in is that boy that had shot Pedro Johnson. He was setting all alone at a little table, hitting a egg with a spoon like he was afraid he’d break it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I takes the chair across the table from him; and he looks insulted and makes a move like he was going to get up.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Keep still, son,’ says I. ‘You’re apprehended, arrested, and in charge of the Texas authorities. Go on and hammer that egg some more if it’s the inside of it you want. Now, what did you shoot <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Johnson, of Bildad, for?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Keep still, son,’ says I. ‘You’re apprehended, arrested, and in charge of the Texas authorities. Go on and hammer that egg some more if it’s the inside of it you want. Now, what did you shoot <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Johnson, of Bildad, for?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“And may I ask who you are?’ says he.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You may,’ says I. ‘Go ahead.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I suppose you’re on,’ says this kid, without batting his eyes. ‘But what are you eating? Here, waiter!’ he calls out, raising his finger. ‘Take this gentleman’s order.</p>
|
||||
@ -108,7 +108,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Have you the usual and necessary requisition papers from the governor of your state?’ asks the judge.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘My usual papers,’ says Luke, ‘was taken away from me at the hotel by these gentlemen who represent law and order in your city. They was two Colt’s .45’s that I’ve packed for nine years; and if I don’t get ’em back, there’ll be more trouble. You can ask anybody in Mojada County about Luke Summers. I don’t usually need any other kind of papers for what I do.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I see the judge looks mad, so I steps up and says:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Your Honor, the aforesaid defendant, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Luke Summers, sheriff of Mojada County, Texas, is as fine a man as ever threw a rope or upheld the statutes and codicils of the greatest state in the Union. But he—’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Your Honor, the aforesaid defendant, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Luke Summers, sheriff of Mojada County, Texas, is as fine a man as ever threw a rope or upheld the statutes and codicils of the greatest state in the Union. But he—’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The judge hits his table with a wooden hammer and asks who I am.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bud Oakley,’ says I. ‘Office deputy of the sheriff’s office of Mojada County, Texas. Representing,’ says I, ‘the Law. Luke Summers,’ I goes on, ‘represents Order. And if Your Honor will give me about ten minutes in private talk, I’ll explain the whole thing to you, and show you the equitable and legal requisition papers which I carry in my pocket.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The judge kind of half smiles and says he will talk with me in his private room. In there I put the whole thing up to him in such language as I had, and when we goes outside, he announces the verdict that the young man is delivered into the hands of the Texas authorities; and calls the next case.</p>
|
||||
@ -116,7 +116,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“When we got the prisoner in the sheriff’s office, I says to Luke:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You, remember that kid of yours—that two-year old that they stole away from you when the bust-up come?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Luke looks black and angry. He’d never let anybody talk to him about that business, and he never mentioned it himself.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Toe the mark,’ says I. ‘Do you remember when he was toddling around on the porch and fell down on a pair of Mexican spurs and cut four little holes over his right eye? Look at the prisoner,’ says I, ‘look at his nose and the shape of his head and—why, you old fool, don’t you know your own son?—I knew him,’ says I, ‘when he perforated <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Johnson at the depot.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Toe the mark,’ says I. ‘Do you remember when he was toddling around on the porch and fell down on a pair of Mexican spurs and cut four little holes over his right eye? Look at the prisoner,’ says I, ‘look at his nose and the shape of his head and—why, you old fool, don’t you know your own son?—I knew him,’ says I, ‘when he perforated <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Johnson at the depot.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Luke comes over to me shaking all over. I never saw him lose his nerve before.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Bud,’ says he. ‘I’ve never had that boy out of my mind one day or one night since he was took away. But I never let on. But can we hold him?—Can we make him stay?—I’ll make the best man of him that ever put his foot in a stirrup. Wait a minute,’ says he, all excited and out of his mind—‘I’ve got some-thing here in my desk—I reckon it’ll hold legal yet—I’ve looked at it a thousand times—“Cus-to-dy of the child,” ’ says Luke—‘ “Cus-to-dy of the child.” We can hold him on that, can’t we? Le’me see if I can find that decree.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Luke begins to tear his desk to pieces.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="led-astray" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Led Astray</h2>
|
||||
<p>There was no happier family in all Houston than the O’Malleys. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Malley held a responsible position in one of our large breweries, and was a thrifty citizen and an indulgent husband and father. His son Pat was part owner of a flourishing little grocery, and also played the E-flat horn in the band that discourses sweet music Sunday afternoons in a building on one of our quietest unpaved avenues.</p>
|
||||
<p>There was no happier family in all Houston than the O’Malleys. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> O’Malley held a responsible position in one of our large breweries, and was a thrifty citizen and an indulgent husband and father. His son Pat was part owner of a flourishing little grocery, and also played the E-flat horn in the band that discourses sweet music Sunday afternoons in a building on one of our quietest unpaved avenues.</p>
|
||||
<p>The light and hope of the family was the youngest daughter, Kathleen, an ebon-haired girl of 19, with Madonna-like features, and eyes as black as the wings of the crow. They lived in a little rose-embowered cottage near the corner where the street car turns.</p>
|
||||
<p>Kathleen was engaged to be married to Fergus O’Hollihan, a stalwart and handsome young man, who came to see her every night, with exquisitely washed hands and face, and wet hair, brushed down low upon a forehead that did not exactly retreat, but seemed to rather fall back for reinforcements. On Sunday nights Kathleen and Fergus would wander arm in arm over to the <span xml:lang="de">Gesundheit Bier Garten</span>, and while the string band in the pavilion played the dear old Fatherland melodies they would sit at a little round table in some dark corner and click glasses in the most friendly and lover-like manner. The marriage was to come off in June, and Kathleen, after the custom of her people, had already prepared her bridal trousseau and housekeeping effects. In her wardrobe were great piles of beautifully embroidered things in fine linen and damask; heaps of table cloths, napkins and towels, and in the big drawers of her bureau were piles of dainty, lace-trimmed garments that Kathleen, being a modest Irish maiden and not a New York millionairess, kept shyly hidden from view, instead of having their description printed in the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Post</i>. Kathleen had made these garments herself, working with loving care and patience, and they were intended as a guarantee of good faith, and not for publication. The girls in the neighborhood all envied Kathleen her good luck, for Fergus was a fine-looking young man, and his business was prospering. He could drink more whiskey, tell funnier jokes and sing “The Wearin’ of the Green” so you could hear it farther on a still night than could any other young man of their acquaintance.</p>
|
||||
<p>So, dark-haired Kathleen was happy, bending over her work with rosy cheeks and smiling lips, while, alas! already the serpent was at work that was to enter her Eden.</p>
|
||||
@ -24,14 +24,14 @@
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p class="continued">that sad and melancholy old song that Irishmen always sing when they feel particularly jolly, his voice sounded plaintive and full of pathos.</p>
|
||||
<p>Kathleen was far too wise to chide him. She tried to be gay and cheerful, though the change in Fergus made her heart very sad. Again the next day, and once more the following day but one, did she see him with the low-browed tempter that had wrought the change.</p>
|
||||
<p>Day by day Fergus grew morose and pale. His once jolly and laughing face grew stern and thoughtful. He rarely spoke to anyone, and once when <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Malley handed him a big schooner from a keg fresh from the brewery, he heaved such a deep and mournful sigh that the foam flew half across the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>Day by day Fergus grew morose and pale. His once jolly and laughing face grew stern and thoughtful. He rarely spoke to anyone, and once when <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> O’Malley handed him a big schooner from a keg fresh from the brewery, he heaved such a deep and mournful sigh that the foam flew half across the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Kathleen,” said her papa one day, “what’s the matter wid that long-legged omadhaun Fergus? He looks like he was walking over his own grave.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, papa,” said Kathleen, bursting into tears, “I do not know, he seems to be full of bayou water.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Let us follow Fergus and the sinister stranger, and see what spell is upon our hero.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>William K. Meeks was a member of the notorious Young Men’s Christian Association. His parents were honest and reputable citizens of Houston, and they had tried to inculcate in him the best principles, and train him to be a good and useful citizen. When about 18 years of age he met a man on the street one night who persuaded him to visit the rooms of the association.</p>
|
||||
<p>After taking a bath and joining in the singing of a hymn, he was led into a game of checkers by some smooth talking young man, and finally threw all reserve to the winds and without a thought of his mother or his home, sank back into an arm chair and began to read the editorials in a religious newspaper.</p>
|
||||
<p>After that his progress in the same direction was easy. He cultivated side whiskers and white ties and fell so swiftly into the alluring ways of his companions that no ice cream and strawberry sociable or Evening of Song in the hall of the association was complete without <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Meeks. He became what is known as a “capper” for the hall, and many poor wandering young fellows strolling aimlessly about the streets of Houston have good cause to remember the sly, suave, plausible voice of the low-browed William Meeks, as he addressed them in insinuating tones, and invited them to the gorgeously lighted rooms of the Young Men’s Christian Association.</p>
|
||||
<p>After that his progress in the same direction was easy. He cultivated side whiskers and white ties and fell so swiftly into the alluring ways of his companions that no ice cream and strawberry sociable or Evening of Song in the hall of the association was complete without <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Meeks. He became what is known as a “capper” for the hall, and many poor wandering young fellows strolling aimlessly about the streets of Houston have good cause to remember the sly, suave, plausible voice of the low-browed William Meeks, as he addressed them in insinuating tones, and invited them to the gorgeously lighted rooms of the Young Men’s Christian Association.</p>
|
||||
<p>William Meeks had for a long time had his eye upon Fergus O’Hollihan. The innocent straightforwardness of the young Irishman seemed to mark him as an easy prey.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day he entered Fergus’ store, made some trifling purchase, and then invited him to the hall.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said Fergus, “I’ll walk up with you, as trade is a little dull. Hadn’t we better take along a bottle of whiskey to help pass away the time?”</p>
|
||||
@ -39,11 +39,11 @@
|
||||
<p>They passed down the street together, and then it was that Kathleen saw them, and the cloud began to gather over her happy young life.</p>
|
||||
<p>William led Fergus to the door of the steps leading up to the hall, gave a sharp glance around to see whether they were observed, and they ascended the stairs.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What do you fellows do up there?” asked Fergus, gazing around the hall in wonder.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We read and sing and pray,” said William. “Now, come over here, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Hollihan, I have something to show you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“We read and sing and pray,” said William. “Now, come over here, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> O’Hollihan, I have something to show you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>William went to a large water cooler in the corner, drew a brimming glass of ice water, and with a cold and cruel smile curling his lips, handed it to Fergus.</p>
|
||||
<p>Ah, little Kathleen, in thy rose-twined cottage, thy dark eyes have many a tear in waiting. Could love be omnipresent, that sparkling glass of water would be dashed to the floor ere it touched thy lover’s lips!</p>
|
||||
<p>Fergus took the glass and gazed with wonder at its transparent contents; then seized with some sudden impulse he drained the glass of water to the last drop. As he drank, William Meeks, with a diabolical look of triumph on his face, rubbed his clammy hands together and exulted.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What is this stuff?” asked Fergus; “this cold, refreshing liquid that with such exquisite freshness thrills through my heated frame? What nectar is this, tasteless, colorless and sweet as the morning air that quenches thirst, and does not excite the senses? Speak, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Meeks, is it to be found elsewhere?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What is this stuff?” asked Fergus; “this cold, refreshing liquid that with such exquisite freshness thrills through my heated frame? What nectar is this, tasteless, colorless and sweet as the morning air that quenches thirst, and does not excite the senses? Speak, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Meeks, is it to be found elsewhere?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is water,” said William, softly, “and it can be had in plenty.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I have often sailed on the bayou,” said Fergus, “and have washed my hands at the hydrant at home, but I have never before seen any water.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Fergus drank glass after glass from the cooler, and finally suffered William to lead him, reluctant, from the hall.</p>
|
||||
@ -52,34 +52,34 @@
|
||||
<p>That evening after he closed the store Fergus started home and suddenly felt an imperious thirst come upon him. He was already a slave to this wonderful new liquid that refreshed him so.</p>
|
||||
<p>He entered a little corner saloon, where he had been in the habit of stopping to get a drink. The bartender seized a mug and reached for the bottle under the counter.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hold on,” said Fergus; “don’t be so fast. Give me a glass of water, please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You owe me ein dollar und five cents,” he said. “Blease, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hollihan, bay me now pefore you go py yourself too much grazy to him remember, und I pe mooch obliged.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You owe me ein dollar und five cents,” he said. “Blease, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Hollihan, bay me now pefore you go py yourself too much grazy to him remember, und I pe mooch obliged.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Fergus then threw the money upon the counter and staggered out of the saloon.</p>
|
||||
<p>He did not go to see Kathleen that night—he was feeling too badly. He was wandering about in an agony of thirst, when he saw a piece of ice as large as a coconut fall from an ice wagon. He seized it in both hands, and hiding himself behind a pile of lumber sucked the ice greedily, with bloodshot eyes and trembling hands.</p>
|
||||
<p>After that he kept a jug of water in the store behind some barrels under the counter, and when no one was looking he would stoop down, and holding up the jug, let the cursed stuff that was driving the light from Kathleen’s dark eyes trickle down his burning throat.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>It was Kathleen’s wedding night. The parlor of the little cottage was brilliantly lit, and roses and evergreens were draped upon the walls. Cape jessamines filled the house with their delicious perfume and wreaths of white lilies were hung upon picture frames and the backs of chairs. The ceremony was to take place at 9 <abbr>p.m.</abbr>, and by 7 o’clock the guests had begun to assemble, for the smell of the good things <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> O’Malley was cooking pervaded the whole neighborhood.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was Kathleen’s wedding night. The parlor of the little cottage was brilliantly lit, and roses and evergreens were draped upon the walls. Cape jessamines filled the house with their delicious perfume and wreaths of white lilies were hung upon picture frames and the backs of chairs. The ceremony was to take place at 9 <abbr>p.m.</abbr>, and by 7 o’clock the guests had begun to assemble, for the smell of the good things <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> O’Malley was cooking pervaded the whole neighborhood.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the parlor, standing on a trestle decorated with violets and evergreens, stood a keg of whiskey as cold as ice, and on the center table were several beautifully decorated imported glasses, with quite a wedding-like polish upon their shining sides.</p>
|
||||
<p>Kathleen’s heart grew lighter as the hour approached. “When Fergus is mine,” she said to herself, “I will be so loving and sweet to him that this strange melancholy will leave him. If it doesn’t, I will pull his hair out.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The minutes crept by, and at half past eight, Kathleen, blushing and timid-eyed, and looking like the Lorelei that charmed men’s souls from their bodies on the purple heights of the Rhine, took her stand by the keg, and shyly drew for her father’s guests glass after glass of the ruby liquid, scarcely less red than the glow upon her own fair cheek.</p>
|
||||
<p>At a quarter to nine Fergus had not come, and all hands began to grow anxious.</p>
|
||||
<p>At ten minutes to nine, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Malley brought in his shotgun and carefully loaded it. Kathleen burst into tears.</p>
|
||||
<p>At ten minutes to nine, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> O’Malley brought in his shotgun and carefully loaded it. Kathleen burst into tears.</p>
|
||||
<p>Where was Fergus O’Hollihan?</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>In the garish halls of the Young Men’s Christian Association were gathered a group of gay young men.</p>
|
||||
<p>Little do the majority of our citizens know what scenes go on in places of this kind. Our police well know that these resorts exist, but such is our system of city government that rarely do the guardians of peace set foot in establishments of the kind. Two or three young men were playing checkers, feverishly crowning the kings of their opponents, and watching the board with that hollow-eyed absorption and compressed lips so often noted in men of that class. Another played upon the guitar, while in a corner harsh ribald laughter broke from the lips of a man who was reading the Austin <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Statesman</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>At a little table at one side of the room sat Fergus O’Hollihan and William Meeks. Before them, on a waiter, were two large glasses of ice water. William Meeks was speaking in a low, treacherous voice, and Fergus was listening with an abandoned and reckless look upon his face.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sobriety,” said William, insinuatingly, as his snaky eyes were fixed upon the open and ingenious countenance of Fergus, “sobriety is one of our cardinal virtues. Why should a man debase himself, destroy his brain, deaden his conscience and forge chains that eventually will clog his best efforts and ruin his fondest hopes? Let us be men and live temperate and cleanly lives. Believe me, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Hollihan, it is the better plan.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sobriety,” said William, insinuatingly, as his snaky eyes were fixed upon the open and ingenious countenance of Fergus, “sobriety is one of our cardinal virtues. Why should a man debase himself, destroy his brain, deaden his conscience and forge chains that eventually will clog his best efforts and ruin his fondest hopes? Let us be men and live temperate and cleanly lives. Believe me, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> O’Hollihan, it is the better plan.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Fergus’ unsteady hand went out to the glass of water and he tossed it down his throat. “More,” he gasped, gazing with feverish eyes. A member of the association in passing by stopped and laid his hand on William’s shoulder.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Old man,” he said in a whisper, “the boys know you’ve struck a soft thing, but don’t carry it too far. We don’t want to have to bore another artesian well.”</p>
|
||||
<p>William shot a glance of displeasure at the young man, and he went away.</p>
|
||||
<p>Just then a quartette began to sing “Come, Thou Fount,” and Fergus, forgetting all his associations and best impulses, joined in with his strong tenor, and William Meeks’ face wore a look of fiendish gloating.</p>
|
||||
<p>At this moment Kathleen was weeping in her mother’s arms. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Malley was just ramming down the wad on the buckshot in his gun, and the beautiful wedding supper was growing cold upon the banquet table.</p>
|
||||
<p>At this moment Kathleen was weeping in her mother’s arms. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> O’Malley was just ramming down the wad on the buckshot in his gun, and the beautiful wedding supper was growing cold upon the banquet table.</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly in the street before the hall a brass band began to play an air that was Kathleen’s favorite. It brought Fergus to his senses. He sprang to his feet and overturned the table and William Meeks. William sprang to his feet, rushed to the cooler and drawing a glass of water thrust it into Fergus’ hands. Fergus hurled the glass to the floor and made a dash for the door. The secretary of the association met him there with the water hose and turned it full in his face. Fergus shut his mouth tightly, put the secretary to sleep with one on the point of his chin, and dashed down the stairs into the street.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>As the clock struck nine, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Malley placed two caps on his gun and one upon his head and started to find his son-in-law elect. The door burst open and Fergus rushed in. Kathleen ran to meet him with open arms, but he waved her sternly aside.</p>
|
||||
<p>As the clock struck nine, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> O’Malley placed two caps on his gun and one upon his head and started to find his son-in-law elect. The door burst open and Fergus rushed in. Kathleen ran to meet him with open arms, but he waved her sternly aside.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I have first,” he said, “a duty to perform.” He knelt before the whiskey keg, closed his mouth over the faucet and turned on the handle.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sing, happy birds, in the green trees, but your songs make not half the melody that ripples in the glad heart of little Kathleen.</p>
|
||||
<p>When Fergus arose from the keg, he was the same old Fergus once more. He gathered his bride to his heart, and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Malley fired both barrels of his gun into the ceiling with joy. Fergus was rescued.</p>
|
||||
<p>When Fergus arose from the keg, he was the same old Fergus once more. He gathered his bride to his heart, and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> O’Malley fired both barrels of his gun into the ceiling with joy. Fergus was rescued.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -50,7 +50,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“What you need,” he decided, “is sea air and companionship.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Would a mermaid—” I began; but he slipped on his professional manner.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I myself,” he said, “will take you to the Hotel Bonair off the coast of Long Island and see that you get in good shape. It is a quiet, comfortable resort where you will soon recuperate.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Hotel Bonair proved to be a nine-hundred-room fashionable hostelry on an island off the main shore. Everybody who did not dress for dinner was shoved into a side dining-room and given only a terrapin and champagne <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</span>. The bay was a great stamping ground for wealthy yachtsmen. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Corsair</i> anchored there the day we arrived. I saw <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan standing on deck eating a cheese sandwich and gazing longingly at the hotel. Still, it was a very inexpensive place. Nobody could afford to pay their prices. When you went away you simply left your baggage, stole a skiff, and beat it for the mainland in the night.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Hotel Bonair proved to be a nine-hundred-room fashionable hostelry on an island off the main shore. Everybody who did not dress for dinner was shoved into a side dining-room and given only a terrapin and champagne <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</span>. The bay was a great stamping ground for wealthy yachtsmen. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Corsair</i> anchored there the day we arrived. I saw <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Morgan standing on deck eating a cheese sandwich and gazing longingly at the hotel. Still, it was a very inexpensive place. Nobody could afford to pay their prices. When you went away you simply left your baggage, stole a skiff, and beat it for the mainland in the night.</p>
|
||||
<p>When I had been there one day I got a pad of monogrammed telegraph blanks at the clerk’s desk and began to wire to all my friends for getaway money. My doctor and I played one game of croquet on the golf links and went to sleep on the lawn.</p>
|
||||
<p>When we got back to town a thought seemed to occur to him suddenly. “By the way,” he asked, “how do you feel?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Relieved of very much,” I replied.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="lost-on-dress-parade" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Lost on Dress Parade</h2>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Towers Chandler was pressing his evening suit in his hall bedroom. One iron was heating on a small gas stove; the other was being pushed vigorously back and forth to make the desirable crease that would be seen later on extending in straight lines from <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Chandler’s patent leather shoes to the edge of his low-cut vest. So much of the hero’s toilet may be entrusted to our confidence. The remainder may be guessed by those whom genteel poverty has driven to ignoble expedient. Our next view of him shall be as he descends the steps of his lodging-house immaculately and correctly clothed; calm, assured, handsome—in appearance the typical New York young clubman setting out, slightly bored, to inaugurate the pleasures of the evening.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Towers Chandler was pressing his evening suit in his hall bedroom. One iron was heating on a small gas stove; the other was being pushed vigorously back and forth to make the desirable crease that would be seen later on extending in straight lines from <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Chandler’s patent leather shoes to the edge of his low-cut vest. So much of the hero’s toilet may be entrusted to our confidence. The remainder may be guessed by those whom genteel poverty has driven to ignoble expedient. Our next view of him shall be as he descends the steps of his lodging-house immaculately and correctly clothed; calm, assured, handsome—in appearance the typical New York young clubman setting out, slightly bored, to inaugurate the pleasures of the evening.</p>
|
||||
<p>Chandler’s honorarium was $18 per week. He was employed in the office of an architect. He was twenty-two years old; he considered architecture to be truly an art; and he honestly believed—though he would not have dared to admit it in New York—that the Flatiron Building was inferior in design to the great cathedral in Milan.</p>
|
||||
<p>Out of each week’s earnings Chandler set aside $1. At the end of each ten weeks with the extra capital thus accumulated, he purchased one gentleman’s evening from the bargain counter of stingy old Father Time. He arrayed himself in the regalia of millionaires and presidents; he took himself to the quarter where life is brightest and showiest, and there dined with taste and luxury. With ten dollars a man may, for a few hours, play the wealthy idler to perfection. The sum is ample for a well-considered meal, a bottle bearing a respectable label, commensurate tips, a smoke, cab fare and the ordinary etceteras.</p>
|
||||
<p>This one delectable evening culled from each dull seventy was to Chandler a source of renascent bliss. To the society bud comes but one debut; it stands alone sweet in her memory when her hair has whitened; but to Chandler each ten weeks brought a joy as keen, as thrilling, as new as the first had been. To sit among bon vivants under palms in the swirl of concealed music, to look upon the <span xml:lang="fr">habitués</span> of such a paradise and to be looked upon by them—what is a girl’s first dance and short-sleeved tulle compared with this?</p>
|
||||
@ -27,10 +27,10 @@
|
||||
<p>“I think,” he said to her, with frank gravity, “that your foot needs a longer rest than you suppose. Now, I am going to suggest a way in which you can give it that and at the same time do me a favour. I was on my way to dine all by my lonely self when you came tumbling around the corner. You come with me and we’ll have a cozy dinner and a pleasant talk together, and by that time your game ankle will carry you home very nicely, I am sure.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The girl looked quickly up into Chandler’s clear, pleasant countenance. Her eyes twinkled once very brightly, and then she smiled ingenuously.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But we don’t know each other—it wouldn’t be right, would it?” she said, doubtfully.</p>
|
||||
<p>“There is nothing wrong about it,” said the young man, candidly. “I’ll introduce myself—permit me—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Towers Chandler. After our dinner, which I will try to make as pleasant as possible, I will bid you good evening, or attend you safely to your door, whichever you prefer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There is nothing wrong about it,” said the young man, candidly. “I’ll introduce myself—permit me—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Towers Chandler. After our dinner, which I will try to make as pleasant as possible, I will bid you good evening, or attend you safely to your door, whichever you prefer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But, dear me!” said the girl, with a glance at Chandler’s faultless attire. “In this old dress and hat!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Never mind that,” said Chandler, cheerfully. “I’m sure you look more charming in them than anyone we shall see in the most elaborate dinner toilette.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“My ankle does hurt yet,” admitted the girl, attempting a limping step. “I think I will accept your invitation, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Chandler. You may call me—Miss Marian.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“My ankle does hurt yet,” admitted the girl, attempting a limping step. “I think I will accept your invitation, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Chandler. You may call me—Miss Marian.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Come then, Miss Marian,” said the young architect, gaily, but with perfect courtesy; “you will not have far to walk. There is a very respectable and good restaurant in the next block. You will have to lean on my arm—so—and walk slowly. It is lonely dining all by one’s self. I’m just a little bit glad that you slipped on the ice.”</p>
|
||||
<p>When the two were established at a well-appointed table, with a promising waiter hovering in attendance, Chandler began to experience the real joy that his regular outing always brought to him.</p>
|
||||
<p>The restaurant was not so showy or pretentious as the one further down Broadway, which he always preferred, but it was nearly so. The tables were well filled with prosperous-looking diners, there was a good orchestra, playing softly enough to make conversation a possible pleasure, and the cuisine and service were beyond criticism. His companion, even in her cheap hat and dress, held herself with an air that added distinction to the natural beauty of her face and figure. And it is certain that she looked at Chandler, with his animated but self-possessed manner and his kindling and frank blue eyes, with something not far from admiration in her own charming face.</p>
|
||||
@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“This way of living that you speak of,” she said, “sounds so futile and purposeless. Haven’t you any work to do in the world that might interest you more?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“My dear Miss Marian,” he exclaimed—“work! Think of dressing every day for dinner, of making half a dozen calls in an afternoon—with a policeman at every corner ready to jump into your auto and take you to the station, if you get up any greater speed than a donkey cart’s gait. We do-nothings are the hardest workers in the land.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The dinner was concluded, the waiter generously fed, and the two walked out to the corner where they had met. Miss Marian walked very well now; her limp was scarcely noticeable.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thank you for a nice time,” she said, frankly. “I must run home now. I liked the dinner very much, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Chandler.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thank you for a nice time,” she said, frankly. “I must run home now. I liked the dinner very much, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Chandler.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He shook hands with her, smiling cordially, and said something about a game of bridge at his club. He watched her for a moment, walking rather rapidly eastward, and then he found a cab to drive him slowly homeward.</p>
|
||||
<p>In his chilly bedroom Chandler laid away his evening clothes for a sixty-nine days’ rest. He went about it thoughtfully.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That was a stunning girl,” he said to himself. “She’s all right, too, I’d be sworn, even if she does have to work. Perhaps if I’d told her the truth instead of all that razzle-dazzle we might—but, confound it! I had to play up to my clothes.”</p>
|
||||
@ -48,7 +48,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Oh, you madcap!” exclaimed the elder girl, when the other entered. “When will you quit frightening us this way? It is two hours since you ran out in that rag of an old dress and Marie’s hat. Mamma has been so alarmed. She sent Louis in the auto to try to find you. You are a bad, thoughtless Puss.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The elder girl touched a button, and a maid came in a moment.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Marie, tell mamma that Miss Marian has returned.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t scold, sister. I only ran down to <abbr>Mme.</abbr> Theo’s to tell her to use mauve insertion instead of pink. My costume and Marie’s hat were just what I needed. Everyone thought I was a shopgirl, I am sure.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t scold, sister. I only ran down to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mme.</abbr> Theo’s to tell her to use mauve insertion instead of pink. My costume and Marie’s hat were just what I needed. Everyone thought I was a shopgirl, I am sure.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Dinner is over, dear; you stayed so late.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I know. I slipped on the sidewalk and turned my ankle. I could not walk, so I hobbled into a restaurant and sat there until I was better. That is why I was so long.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The two girls sat in the window seat, looking out at the lights and the stream of hurrying vehicles in the avenue. The younger one cuddled down with her head in her sister’s lap.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,11 +8,11 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="lucky-either-way" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Lucky Either Way</h2>
|
||||
<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 epub:type="z3998:given-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>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 epub:type="z3998:given-name">J. H.</abbr> Connelly’s story entitled “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">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> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">J. H.</abbr> 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 epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-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>
|
||||
<p>We would like to read “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">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>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“<i xml:lang="la">De mortuis nil</i>, auntie—not even the rest of it. The dear old colonel—what a gold brick he was, after all! I paid for my bargain fairly—I’m all here, am I not?—items: eyes, fingers, toes, youth, old family, unquestionable position in society as called for in the contract—no wildcat stock here.” Octavia picked up the morning paper from the floor. “But I’m not going to ‘squeal’—isn’t that what they call it when you rail at Fortune because you’ve, lost the game?” She turned the pages of the paper calmly. “ ‘Stock market’—no use for that. ‘Society’s doings’—that’s done. Here is my page—the wish column. A Van Dresser could not be said to ‘want’ for anything, of course. ‘Chambermaids, cooks, canvassers, stenographers—’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Dear,” said Aunt Ellen, with a little tremor in her voice, “please do not talk in that way. Even if your affairs are in so unfortunate a condition, there is my three thousand—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia sprang up lithely, and deposited a smart kiss on the delicate cheek of the prim little elderly maid.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Blessed auntie, your three thousand is just sufficient to insure your Hyson to be free from willow leaves and keep the Persian in sterilized cream. I know I’d be welcome, but I prefer to strike bottom like Beelzebub rather than hang around like the Peri listening to the music from the side entrance. I’m going to earn my own living. There’s nothing else to do. I’m a—Oh, oh, oh!—I had forgotten. There’s one thing saved from the wreck. It’s a corral—no, a ranch in—let me see—Texas: an asset, dear old <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister called it. How pleased he was to show me something he could describe as unencumbered! I’ve a description of it among those stupid papers he made me bring away with me from his office. I’ll try to find it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Blessed auntie, your three thousand is just sufficient to insure your Hyson to be free from willow leaves and keep the Persian in sterilized cream. I know I’d be welcome, but I prefer to strike bottom like Beelzebub rather than hang around like the Peri listening to the music from the side entrance. I’m going to earn my own living. There’s nothing else to do. I’m a—Oh, oh, oh!—I had forgotten. There’s one thing saved from the wreck. It’s a corral—no, a ranch in—let me see—Texas: an asset, dear old <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bannister called it. How pleased he was to show me something he could describe as unencumbered! I’ve a description of it among those stupid papers he made me bring away with me from his office. I’ll try to find it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia found her shopping-bag, and drew from it a long envelope filled with typewritten documents.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A ranch in Texas,” sighed Aunt Ellen. “It sounds to me more like a liability than an asset. Those are the places where the centipedes are found, and cowboys, and fandangos.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘The <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span>,’ ” read Octavia from a sheet of violently purple typewriting, “ ‘is situated one hundred and ten miles southeast of San Antonio, and thirty-eight miles from its nearest railroad station, Nopal, on the <abbr>I. and G. N.</abbr> Ranch, consists of 7,680 acres of well-watered land, with title conferred by State patents, and twenty-two sections, or 14,080 acres, partly under yearly running lease and partly bought under State’s twenty-year-purchase act. Eight thousand graded merino sheep, with the necessary equipment of horses, vehicles and general ranch paraphernalia. Ranch-house built of brick, with six rooms comfortably furnished according to the requirements of the climate. All within a strong barbed-wire fence.</p>
|
||||
@ -35,8 +35,8 @@
|
||||
<p>Aunt Ellen bent over her, and smoothed the coppery-brown hair.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I didn’t know,” she said, gently; “I didn’t know—that. Who was it, dear?”</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>When <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Octavia Beaupree, née Van Dresser, stepped from the train at Nopal, her manner lost, for the moment, some of that easy certitude which had always marked her movements. The town was of recent establishment, and seemed to have been hastily constructed of undressed lumber and flapping canvas. The element that had congregated about the station, though not offensively demonstrative, was clearly composed of citizens accustomed to and prepared for rude alarms.</p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia stood on the platform, against the telegraph office, and attempted to choose by intuition from the swaggering, straggling string of loungers, the manager of the <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span>, who had been instructed by <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister to meet her there. That tall, serious, looking, elderly man in the blue flannel shirt and white tie she thought must be he. But, no; he passed by, removing his gaze from the lady as hers rested on him, according to the Southern custom. The manager, she thought, with some impatience at being kept waiting, should have no difficulty in selecting her. Young women wearing the most recent thing in ash-coloured travelling suits were not so plentiful in Nopal!</p>
|
||||
<p>When <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Octavia Beaupree, née Van Dresser, stepped from the train at Nopal, her manner lost, for the moment, some of that easy certitude which had always marked her movements. The town was of recent establishment, and seemed to have been hastily constructed of undressed lumber and flapping canvas. The element that had congregated about the station, though not offensively demonstrative, was clearly composed of citizens accustomed to and prepared for rude alarms.</p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia stood on the platform, against the telegraph office, and attempted to choose by intuition from the swaggering, straggling string of loungers, the manager of the <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span>, who had been instructed by <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bannister to meet her there. That tall, serious, looking, elderly man in the blue flannel shirt and white tie she thought must be he. But, no; he passed by, removing his gaze from the lady as hers rested on him, according to the Southern custom. The manager, she thought, with some impatience at being kept waiting, should have no difficulty in selecting her. Young women wearing the most recent thing in ash-coloured travelling suits were not so plentiful in Nopal!</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus keeping a speculative watch on all persons of possible managerial aspect, Octavia, with a catching breath and a start of surprise, suddenly became aware of Teddy Westlake hurrying along the platform in the direction of the train—of Teddy Westlake or his sun-browned ghost in cheviot, boots and leather-girdled hat—Theodore Westlake, <abbr>Jr.</abbr>, amateur polo (almost) champion, all-round butterfly and cumberer of the soil; but a broader, surer, more emphasized and determined Teddy than the one she had known a year ago when last she saw him.</p>
|
||||
<p>He perceived Octavia at almost the same time, deflected his course, and steered for her in his old, straightforward way. Something like awe came upon her as the strangeness of his metamorphosis was brought into closer range; the rich, red-brown of his complexion brought out so vividly his straw-coloured mustache and steel-gray eyes. He seemed more grownup, and, somehow, farther away. But, when he spoke, the old, boyish Teddy came back again. They had been friends from childhood.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, ’Tave!” he exclaimed, unable to reduce his perplexity to coherence. “How—what—when—where?”</p>
|
||||
@ -50,12 +50,12 @@
|
||||
<p>Octavia leaned against the wall of the telegraph office. Was this possible? And didn’t he know?</p>
|
||||
<p>“Are you the manager of that ranch?” she asked weakly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am,” said Teddy, with pride.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Beaupree,” said Octavia faintly; “but my hair never would curl, and I was polite to the conductor.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Beaupree,” said Octavia faintly; “but my hair never would curl, and I was polite to the conductor.”</p>
|
||||
<p>For a moment that strange, grown-up look came back, and removed Teddy miles away from her.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I hope you’ll excuse me,” he said, rather awkwardly. “You see, I’ve been down here in the chaparral a year. I hadn’t heard. Give me your checks, please, and I’ll have your traps loaded into the wagon. José will follow with them. We travel ahead in the buckboard.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Seated by Teddy in a featherweight buckboard, behind a pair of wild, cream-coloured Spanish ponies, Octavia abandoned all thought for the exhilaration of the present. They swept out of the little town and down the level road toward the south. Soon the road dwindled and disappeared, and they struck across a world carpeted with an endless reach of curly mesquite grass. The wheels made no sound. The tireless ponies bounded ahead at an unbroken gallop. The temperate wind, made fragrant by thousands of acres of blue and yellow wild flowers, roared gloriously in their ears. The motion was aerial, ecstatic, with a thrilling sense of perpetuity in its effect. Octavia sat silent, possessed by a feeling of elemental, sensual bliss. Teddy seemed to be wrestling with some internal problem.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m going to call you <i xml:lang="es">madama</i>,” he announced as the result of his labours. “That is what the Mexicans will call you—they’re nearly all Mexicans on the ranch, you know. That seems to me about the proper thing.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Very well, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Westlake,” said Octavia, primly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Very well, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Westlake,” said Octavia, primly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, now,” said Teddy, in some consternation, “that’s carrying the thing too far, isn’t it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t worry me with your beastly etiquette. I’m just beginning to live. Don’t remind me of anything artificial. If only this air could be bottled! This much alone is worth coming for. Oh, look! there goes a deer!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jackrabbit,” said Teddy, without turning his head.</p>
|
||||
@ -81,24 +81,24 @@
|
||||
<p>“It’s a home, Teddy,” said Octavia, breathlessly; “that’s what it is—it’s a home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not so bad for a sheep ranch,” admitted Teddy, with excusable pride. “I’ve been tinkering on it at odd times.”</p>
|
||||
<p>A Mexican youth sprang from somewhere in the grass, and took charge of the creams. The mistress and the manager entered the house.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Here’s <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre,” said Teddy, as a placid, neat, elderly lady came out upon the gallery to meet them. “<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Mac, here’s the boss. Very likely she will be wanting a hunk of ham and a dish of beans after her drive.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre, the housekeeper, as much a fixture on the place as the lake or the live-oaks, received the imputation of the ranch’s resources of refreshment with mild indignation, and was about to give it utterance when Octavia spoke.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre, don’t apologize for Teddy. Yes, I call him Teddy. So does everyone whom he hasn’t duped into taking him seriously. You see, we used to cut paper dolls and play jackstraws together ages ago. No one minds what he says.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Here’s <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre,” said Teddy, as a placid, neat, elderly lady came out upon the gallery to meet them. “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Mac, here’s the boss. Very likely she will be wanting a hunk of ham and a dish of beans after her drive.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre, the housekeeper, as much a fixture on the place as the lake or the live-oaks, received the imputation of the ranch’s resources of refreshment with mild indignation, and was about to give it utterance when Octavia spoke.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre, don’t apologize for Teddy. Yes, I call him Teddy. So does everyone whom he hasn’t duped into taking him seriously. You see, we used to cut paper dolls and play jackstraws together ages ago. No one minds what he says.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No,” said Teddy, “no one minds what he says, just so he doesn’t do it again.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia cast one of those subtle, sidelong glances toward him from beneath her lowered eyelids—a glance that Teddy used to describe as an uppercut. But there was nothing in his ingenuous, weather-tanned face to warrant a suspicion that he was making an allusion—nothing. Beyond a doubt, thought Octavia, he had forgotten.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Westlake likes his fun,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre, as she conducted Octavia to her rooms. “But,” she added, loyally, “people around here usually pay attention to what he says when he talks in earnest. I don’t know what would have become of this place without him.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Westlake likes his fun,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre, as she conducted Octavia to her rooms. “But,” she added, loyally, “people around here usually pay attention to what he says when he talks in earnest. I don’t know what would have become of this place without him.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Two rooms at the east end of the house had been arranged for the occupancy of the ranch’s mistress. When she entered them a slight dismay seized her at their bare appearance and the scantiness of their furniture; but she quickly reflected that the climate was a semitropical one, and was moved to appreciation of the well-conceived efforts to conform to it. The sashes had already been removed from the big windows, and white curtains waved in the Gulf breeze that streamed through the wide jalousies. The bare floor was amply strewn with cool rugs; the chairs were inviting, deep, dreamy willows; the walls were papered with a light, cheerful olive. One whole side of her sitting room was covered with books on smooth, unpainted pine shelves. She flew to these at once. Before her was a well-selected library. She caught glimpses of titles of volumes of fiction and travel not yet seasoned from the dampness of the press.</p>
|
||||
<p>Presently, recollecting that she was now in a wilderness given over to mutton, centipedes and privations, the incongruity of these luxuries struck her, and, with intuitive feminine suspicion, she began turning to the flyleaves of volume after volume. Upon each one was inscribed in fluent characters the name of Theodore Westlake, <abbr class="eoc">Jr.</abbr></p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia, fatigued by her long journey, retired early that night. Lying upon her white, cool bed, she rested deliciously, but sleep coquetted long with her. She listened to faint noises whose strangeness kept her faculties on the alert—the fractious yelping of the coyotes, the ceaseless, low symphony of the wind, the distant booming of the frogs about the lake, the lamentation of a concertina in the Mexicans’ quarters. There were many conflicting feelings in her heart—thankfulness and rebellion, peace and disquietude, loneliness and a sense of protecting care, happiness and an old, haunting pain.</p>
|
||||
<p>She did what any other woman would have done—sought relief in a wholesome tide of unreasonable tears, and her last words, murmured to herself before slumber, capitulating, came softly to woo her, were “He has forgotten.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The manager of the <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span> was no dilettante. He was a “hustler.” He was generally up, mounted, and away of mornings before the rest of the household were awake, making the rounds of the flocks and camps. This was the duty of the majordomo, a stately old Mexican with a princely air and manner, but Teddy seemed to have a great deal of confidence in his own eyesight. Except in the busy seasons, he nearly always returned to the ranch to breakfast at eight o’clock, with Octavia and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre, at the little table set in the central hallway, bringing with him a tonic and breezy cheerfulness full of the health and flavour of the prairies.</p>
|
||||
<p>The manager of the <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span> was no dilettante. He was a “hustler.” He was generally up, mounted, and away of mornings before the rest of the household were awake, making the rounds of the flocks and camps. This was the duty of the majordomo, a stately old Mexican with a princely air and manner, but Teddy seemed to have a great deal of confidence in his own eyesight. Except in the busy seasons, he nearly always returned to the ranch to breakfast at eight o’clock, with Octavia and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre, at the little table set in the central hallway, bringing with him a tonic and breezy cheerfulness full of the health and flavour of the prairies.</p>
|
||||
<p>A few days after Octavia’s arrival he made her get out one of her riding skirts, and curtail it to a shortness demanded by the chaparral brakes.</p>
|
||||
<p>With some misgivings she donned this and the pair of buckskin leggings he prescribed in addition, and, mounted upon a dancing pony, rode with him to view her possessions. He showed her everything—the flocks of ewes, muttons and grazing lambs, the dipping vats, the shearing pens, the uncouth merino rams in their little pasture, the water-tanks prepared against the summer drought—giving account of his stewardship with a boyish enthusiasm that never flagged.</p>
|
||||
<p>Where was the old Teddy that she knew so well? This side of him was the same, and it was a side that pleased her; but this was all she ever saw of him now. Where was his sentimentality—those old, varying moods of impetuous lovemaking, of fanciful, quixotic devotion, of heartbreaking gloom, of alternating, absurd tenderness and haughty dignity? His nature had been a sensitive one, his temperament bordering closely on the artistic. She knew that, besides being a follower of fashion and its fads and sports, he had cultivated tastes of a finer nature. He had written things, he had tampered with colours, he was something of a student in certain branches of art, and once she had been admitted to all his aspirations and thoughts. But now—and she could not avoid the conclusion—Teddy had barricaded against her every side of himself except one—the side that showed the manager of the <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span> and a jolly chum who had forgiven and forgotten. Queerly enough the words of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister’s description of her property came into her mind—“all enclosed within a strong barbed-wire fence.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Where was the old Teddy that she knew so well? This side of him was the same, and it was a side that pleased her; but this was all she ever saw of him now. Where was his sentimentality—those old, varying moods of impetuous lovemaking, of fanciful, quixotic devotion, of heartbreaking gloom, of alternating, absurd tenderness and haughty dignity? His nature had been a sensitive one, his temperament bordering closely on the artistic. She knew that, besides being a follower of fashion and its fads and sports, he had cultivated tastes of a finer nature. He had written things, he had tampered with colours, he was something of a student in certain branches of art, and once she had been admitted to all his aspirations and thoughts. But now—and she could not avoid the conclusion—Teddy had barricaded against her every side of himself except one—the side that showed the manager of the <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span> and a jolly chum who had forgiven and forgotten. Queerly enough the words of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bannister’s description of her property came into her mind—“all enclosed within a strong barbed-wire fence.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Teddy’s fenced, too,” said Octavia to herself.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was not difficult for her to reason out the cause of his fortifications. It had originated one night at the Hammersmiths’ ball. It occurred at a time soon after she had decided to accept Colonel Beaupree and his million, which was no more than her looks and the entrée she held to the inner circles were worth. Teddy had proposed with all his impetuosity and fire, and she looked him straight in the eyes, and said, coldly and finally: “Never let me hear any such silly nonsense from you again.” “You won’t,” said Teddy, with an expression around his mouth, and—now Teddy was enclosed within a strong barbed-wire fence.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was on this first ride of inspection that Teddy was seized by the inspiration that suggested the name of Mother Goose’s heroine, and he at once bestowed it upon Octavia. The idea, supported by both a similarity of names and identity of occupations, seemed to strike him as a peculiarly happy one, and he never tired of using it. The Mexicans on the ranch also took up the name, adding another syllable to accommodate their lingual incapacity for the final “p,” gravely referring to her as “<i xml:lang="es">La Madama Bo-Peepy</i>.” Eventually it spread, and “Madame Bo-Peep’s ranch” was as often mentioned as the “<span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span>.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Came the long, hot season from May to September, when work is scarce on the ranches. Octavia passed the days in a kind of lotus-eater’s dream. Books, hammocks, correspondence with a few intimate friends, a renewed interest in her old watercolour box and easel—these disposed of the sultry hours of daylight. The evenings were always sure to bring enjoyment. Best of all were the rapturous horseback rides with Teddy, when the moon gave light over the windswept leagues, chaperoned by the wheeling nighthawk and the startled owl. Often the Mexicans would come up from their shacks with their guitars and sing the weirdest of heartbreaking songs. There were long, cosy chats on the breezy gallery, and an interminable warfare of wits between Teddy and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre, whose abundant Scotch shrewdness often more than overmatched the lighter humour in which she was lacking.</p>
|
||||
<p>Came the long, hot season from May to September, when work is scarce on the ranches. Octavia passed the days in a kind of lotus-eater’s dream. Books, hammocks, correspondence with a few intimate friends, a renewed interest in her old watercolour box and easel—these disposed of the sultry hours of daylight. The evenings were always sure to bring enjoyment. Best of all were the rapturous horseback rides with Teddy, when the moon gave light over the windswept leagues, chaperoned by the wheeling nighthawk and the startled owl. Often the Mexicans would come up from their shacks with their guitars and sing the weirdest of heartbreaking songs. There were long, cosy chats on the breezy gallery, and an interminable warfare of wits between Teddy and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre, whose abundant Scotch shrewdness often more than overmatched the lighter humour in which she was lacking.</p>
|
||||
<p>And the nights came, one after another, and were filed away by weeks and months—nights soft and languorous and fragrant, that should have driven Strephon to Chloe over wires however barbed, that might have drawn Cupid himself to hunt, lasso in hand, among those amorous pastures—but Teddy kept his fences up.</p>
|
||||
<p>One July night Madame Bo-Peep and her ranch manager were sitting on the east gallery. Teddy had been exhausting the science of prognostication as to the probabilities of a price of twenty-four cents for the autumn clip, and had then subsided into an anesthetic cloud of Havana smoke. Only as incompetent a judge as a woman would have failed to note long ago that at least a third of his salary must have gone up in the fumes of those imported Regalias.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Teddy,” said Octavia, suddenly, and rather sharply, “what are you working down here on a ranch for?”</p>
|
||||
@ -128,37 +128,37 @@
|
||||
<p>“A bang-up chap, that McArdle,” maintained Teddy approvingly. “A man who hated olives and elevators; a man who handled mountains as croquettes, and built tunnels in the air; a man who never uttered a word of silly nonsense in his life. Did you sign those lease-renewal applications yet, <i xml:lang="es">madama</i>? They’ve got to be on file in the land office by the thirty-first.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Teddy turned his head lazily. Octavia’s chair was vacant.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>A certain centipede, crawling along the lines marked out by fate, expounded the situation. It was early one morning while Octavia and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre were trimming the honeysuckle on the west gallery. Teddy had risen and departed hastily before daylight in response to word that a flock of ewes had been scattered from their bedding ground during the night by a thunderstorm.</p>
|
||||
<p>The centipede, driven by destiny, showed himself on the floor of the gallery, and then, the screeches of the two women giving him his cue, he scuttled with all his yellow legs through the open door into the furthermost west room, which was Teddy’s. Arming themselves with domestic utensils selected with regard to their length, Octavia and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre, with much clutching of skirts and skirmishing for the position of rear guard in the attacking force, followed.</p>
|
||||
<p>A certain centipede, crawling along the lines marked out by fate, expounded the situation. It was early one morning while Octavia and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre were trimming the honeysuckle on the west gallery. Teddy had risen and departed hastily before daylight in response to word that a flock of ewes had been scattered from their bedding ground during the night by a thunderstorm.</p>
|
||||
<p>The centipede, driven by destiny, showed himself on the floor of the gallery, and then, the screeches of the two women giving him his cue, he scuttled with all his yellow legs through the open door into the furthermost west room, which was Teddy’s. Arming themselves with domestic utensils selected with regard to their length, Octavia and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre, with much clutching of skirts and skirmishing for the position of rear guard in the attacking force, followed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Once outside, the centipede seemed to have disappeared, and his prospective murderers began a thorough but cautious search for their victim.</p>
|
||||
<p>Even in the midst of such a dangerous and absorbing adventure Octavia was conscious of an awed curiosity on finding herself in Teddy’s sanctum. In that room he sat alone, silently communing with those secret thoughts that he now shared with no one, dreamed there whatever dreams he now called on no one to interpret.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was the room of a Spartan or a soldier. In one corner stood a wide, canvas-covered cot; in another, a small bookcase; in another, a grim stand of Winchesters and shotguns. An immense table, strewn with letters, papers and documents and surmounted by a set of pigeonholes, occupied one side.</p>
|
||||
<p>The centipede showed genius in concealing himself in such bare quarters. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre was poking a broom-handle behind the bookcase. Octavia approached Teddy’s cot. The room was just as the manager had left it in his hurry. The Mexican maid had not yet given it her attention. There was his big pillow with the imprint of his head still in the centre. She thought the horrid beast might have climbed the cot and hidden itself to bite Teddy. Centipedes were thus cruel and vindictive toward managers.</p>
|
||||
<p>The centipede showed genius in concealing himself in such bare quarters. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre was poking a broom-handle behind the bookcase. Octavia approached Teddy’s cot. The room was just as the manager had left it in his hurry. The Mexican maid had not yet given it her attention. There was his big pillow with the imprint of his head still in the centre. She thought the horrid beast might have climbed the cot and hidden itself to bite Teddy. Centipedes were thus cruel and vindictive toward managers.</p>
|
||||
<p>She cautiously overturned the pillow, and then parted her lips to give the signal for reinforcements at sight of a long, slender, dark object lying there. But, repressing it in time, she caught up a glove, a pearl-gray glove, flattened—it might be conceived—by many, many months of nightly pressure beneath the pillow of the man who had forgotten the Hammersmiths’ ball. Teddy must have left so hurriedly that morning that he had, for once, forgotten to transfer it to its resting-place by day. Even managers, who are notoriously wily and cunning, are sometimes caught up with.</p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia slid the gray glove into the bosom of her summery morning gown. It was hers. Men who put themselves within a strong barbed-wire fence, and remember Hammersmith balls only by the talk of miners about sluice-boxes, should not be allowed to possess such articles.</p>
|
||||
<p>After all, what a paradise this prairie country was! How it blossomed like the rose when you found things that were thought to be lost! How delicious was that morning breeze coming in the windows, fresh and sweet with the breath of the yellow ratama blooms! Might one not stand, for a minute, with shining, far-gazing eyes, and dream that mistakes might be corrected?</p>
|
||||
<p>Why was <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre poking about so absurdly with a broom?</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve found it,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre, banging the door. “Here it is.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Why was <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre poking about so absurdly with a broom?</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve found it,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre, banging the door. “Here it is.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did you lose something?” asked Octavia, with sweetly polite non-interest.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The little devil!” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre, driven to violence. “Ye’ve no forgotten him alretty?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The little devil!” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre, driven to violence. “Ye’ve no forgotten him alretty?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Between them they slew the centipede. Thus was he rewarded for his agency toward the recovery of things lost at the Hammersmiths’ ball.</p>
|
||||
<p>It seems that Teddy, in due course, remembered the glove, and when he returned to the house at sunset made a secret but exhaustive search for it. Not until evening, upon the moonlit eastern gallery, did he find it. It was upon the hand that he had thought lost to him forever, and so he was moved to repeat certain nonsense that he had been commanded never, never to utter again. Teddy’s fences were down.</p>
|
||||
<p>This time there was no ambition to stand in the way, and the wooing was as natural and successful as should be between ardent shepherd and gentle shepherdess.</p>
|
||||
<p>The prairies changed to a garden. The <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span> became the Ranch of Light.</p>
|
||||
<p>A few days later Octavia received a letter from <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister, in reply to one she had written to him asking some questions about her business. A portion of the letter ran as follows:</p>
|
||||
<p>A few days later Octavia received a letter from <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bannister, in reply to one she had written to him asking some questions about her business. A portion of the letter ran as follows:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p>I am at a loss to account for your references to the sheep ranch. Two months after your departure to take up your residence upon it, it was discovered that Colonel Beaupree’s title was worthless. A deed came to light showing that he disposed of the property before his death. The matter was reported to your manager, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Westlake, who at once repurchased the property. It is entirely beyond my powers of conjecture to imagine how you have remained in ignorance of this fact. I beg that you that will at once confer with that gentleman, who will, at least, corroborate my statement.</p>
|
||||
<p>I am at a loss to account for your references to the sheep ranch. Two months after your departure to take up your residence upon it, it was discovered that Colonel Beaupree’s title was worthless. A deed came to light showing that he disposed of the property before his death. The matter was reported to your manager, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Westlake, who at once repurchased the property. It is entirely beyond my powers of conjecture to imagine how you have remained in ignorance of this fact. I beg that you that will at once confer with that gentleman, who will, at least, corroborate my statement.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>Octavia sought Teddy, with battle in her eye.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What are you working on this ranch for?” she asked once more.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One hundred—” he began to repeat, but saw in her face that she knew. She held <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister’s letter in her hand. He knew that the game was up.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One hundred—” he began to repeat, but saw in her face that she knew. She held <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bannister’s letter in her hand. He knew that the game was up.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s my ranch,” said Teddy, like a schoolboy detected in evil. “It’s a mighty poor manager that isn’t able to absorb the boss’s business if you give him time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why were you working down here?” pursued Octavia still struggling after the key to the riddle of Teddy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“To tell the truth, ’Tave,” said Teddy, with quiet candour, “it wasn’t for the salary. That about kept me in cigars and sunburn lotions. I was sent south by my doctor. ’Twas that right lung that was going to the bad on account of over-exercise and strain at polo and gymnastics. I needed climate and ozone and rest and things of that sort.”</p>
|
||||
<p>In an instant Octavia was close against the vicinity of the affected organ. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister’s letter fluttered to the floor.</p>
|
||||
<p>In an instant Octavia was close against the vicinity of the affected organ. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bannister’s letter fluttered to the floor.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s—it’s well now, isn’t it, Teddy?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sound as a mesquite chunk. I deceived you in one thing. I paid fifty thousand for your ranch as soon as I found you had no title. I had just about that much income accumulated at my banker’s while I’ve been herding sheep down here, so it was almost like picking the thing up on a bargain-counter for a penny. There’s another little surplus of unearned increment piling up there, ’Tave. I’ve been thinking of a wedding trip in a yacht with white ribbons tied to the mast, through the Mediterranean, and then up among the Hebrides and down Norway to the Zuyder Zee.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“And I was thinking,” said Octavia, softly, “of a wedding gallop with my manager among the flocks of sheep and back to a wedding breakfast with <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre on the gallery, with, maybe, a sprig of orange blossom fastened to the red jar above the table.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“And I was thinking,” said Octavia, softly, “of a wedding gallop with my manager among the flocks of sheep and back to a wedding breakfast with <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre on the gallery, with, maybe, a sprig of orange blossom fastened to the red jar above the table.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Teddy laughed, and began to chant:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:verse">
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -65,7 +65,7 @@
|
||||
<p>The story should end here. I wish it would as heartily as you who read it wish it did. But we must go to the bottom of the well for truth.</p>
|
||||
<p>The next day a person with red hands and a blue polka-dot necktie, who called himself Kelly, called at Anthony Rockwall’s house, and was at once received in the library.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well,” said Anthony, reaching for his chequebook, “it was a good bilin’ of soap. Let’s see—you had $5,000 in cash.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I paid out $300 more of my own,” said Kelly. “I had to go a little above the estimate. I got the express wagons and cabs mostly for $5; but the trucks and two-horse teams mostly raised me to $10. The motormen wanted $10, and some of the loaded teams $20. The cops struck me hardest—$50 I paid two, and the rest $20 and $25. But didn’t it work beautiful, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Rockwall? I’m glad William <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">A.</abbr> Brady wasn’t onto that little outdoor vehicle mob scene. I wouldn’t want William to break his heart with jealousy. And never a rehearsal, either! The boys was on time to the fraction of a second. It was two hours before a snake could get below Greeley’s statue.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I paid out $300 more of my own,” said Kelly. “I had to go a little above the estimate. I got the express wagons and cabs mostly for $5; but the trucks and two-horse teams mostly raised me to $10. The motormen wanted $10, and some of the loaded teams $20. The cops struck me hardest—$50 I paid two, and the rest $20 and $25. But didn’t it work beautiful, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Rockwall? I’m glad William <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">A.</abbr> Brady wasn’t onto that little outdoor vehicle mob scene. I wouldn’t want William to break his heart with jealousy. And never a rehearsal, either! The boys was on time to the fraction of a second. It was two hours before a snake could get below Greeley’s statue.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thirteen hundred—there you are, Kelly,” said Anthony, tearing off a check. “Your thousand, and the $300 you were out. You don’t despise money, do you, Kelly?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Me?” said Kelly. “I can lick the man that invented poverty.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Anthony called Kelly when he was at the door.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
|
||||
<p>It took me two weeks to find out what women carry in dress suitcases. And then I began to ask why a mattress is made in two pieces. This serious query was at first received with suspicion because it sounded like a conundrum. I was at last assured that its double form of construction was designed to make lighter the burden of woman, who makes up beds. I was so foolish as to persist, begging to know why, then, they were not made in two equal pieces; whereupon I was shunned.</p>
|
||||
<p>The third draught that I craved from the fount of knowledge was enlightenment concerning the character known as A Man About Town. He was more vague in my mind than a type should be. We must have a concrete idea of anything, even if it be an imaginary idea, before we can comprehend it. Now, I have a mental picture of John Doe that is as clear as a steel engraving. His eyes are weak blue; he wears a brown vest and a shiny black serge coat. He stands always in the sunshine chewing something; and he keeps half-shutting his pocket knife and opening it again with his thumb. And, if the Man Higher Up is ever found, take my assurance for it, he will be a large, pale man with blue wristlets showing under his cuffs, and he will be sitting to have his shoes polished within sound of a bowling alley, and there will be somewhere about him turquoises.</p>
|
||||
<p>But the canvas of my imagination, when it came to limning the Man About Town, was blank. I fancied that he had a detachable sneer (like the smile of the Cheshire cat) and attached cuffs; and that was all. Whereupon I asked a newspaper reporter about him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why,” said he, “a ‘Man About Town’ is something between a ‘rounder’ and a ‘clubman.’ He isn’t exactly—well, he fits in between <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Fish’s receptions and private boxing bouts. He doesn’t—well, he doesn’t belong either to the Lotus Club or to the Jerry McGeogheghan Galvanised Iron Workers’ Apprentices’ Left Hook Chowder Association. I don’t exactly know how to describe him to you. You’ll see him everywhere there’s anything doing. Yes, I suppose he’s a type. Dress clothes every evening; knows the ropes; calls every policeman and waiter in town by their first names. No; he never travels with the hydrogen derivatives. You generally see him alone or with another man.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why,” said he, “a ‘Man About Town’ is something between a ‘rounder’ and a ‘clubman.’ He isn’t exactly—well, he fits in between <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Fish’s receptions and private boxing bouts. He doesn’t—well, he doesn’t belong either to the Lotus Club or to the Jerry McGeogheghan Galvanised Iron Workers’ Apprentices’ Left Hook Chowder Association. I don’t exactly know how to describe him to you. You’ll see him everywhere there’s anything doing. Yes, I suppose he’s a type. Dress clothes every evening; knows the ropes; calls every policeman and waiter in town by their first names. No; he never travels with the hydrogen derivatives. You generally see him alone or with another man.”</p>
|
||||
<p>My friend the reporter left me, and I wandered further afield. By this time the 3126 electric lights on the Rialto were alight. People passed, but they held me not. Paphian eyes rayed upon me, and left me unscathed. Diners, heimgangers, shop-girls, confidence men, panhandlers, actors, highwaymen, millionaires and outlanders hurried, skipped, strolled, sneaked, swaggered and scurried by me; but I took no note of them. I knew them all; I had read their hearts; they had served. I wanted my Man About Town. He was a type, and to drop him would be an error—a typograph—but no! let us continue.</p>
|
||||
<p>Let us continue with a moral digression. To see a family reading the Sunday paper gratifies. The sections have been separated. Papa is earnestly scanning the page that pictures the young lady exercising before an open window, and bending—but there, there! Mamma is interested in trying to guess the missing letters in the word N_w Yo_k. The oldest girls are eagerly perusing the financial reports, for a certain young man remarked last Sunday night that he had taken a flyer in <abbr class="eoc">Q., X. & Z.</abbr> Willie, the eighteen-year-old son, who attends the New York public school, is absorbed in the weekly article describing how to make over an old skirt, for he hopes to take a prize in sewing on graduation day.</p>
|
||||
<p>Grandma is holding to the comic supplement with a two-hours’ grip; and little Tottie, the baby, is rocking along the best she can with the real estate transfers. This view is intended to be reassuring, for it is desirable that a few lines of this story be skipped. For it introduces strong drink.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -63,7 +63,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“You don’t understand, Billy,” said White, with an uneasy laugh. “Some of us fellows who try to paint have big notions about Art. I wanted to paint a picture some day that people would stand before and forget that it was made of paint. I wanted it to creep into them like a bar of music and mushroom there like a soft bullet. And I wanted ’em to go away and ask, ‘What else has he done?’ And I didn’t want ’em to find a thing; not a portrait nor a magazine cover nor an illustration nor a drawing of a girl—nothing but <em>the</em> picture. That’s why I’ve lived on fried sausages, and tried to keep true to myself. I persuaded myself to do this portrait for the chance it might give me to study abroad. But this howling, screaming caricature! Good Lord! can’t you see how it is?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sure,” said Keogh, as tenderly as he would have spoken to a child, and he laid a long forefinger on White’s knee. “I see. It’s bad to have your art all slugged up like that. I know. You wanted to paint a big thing like the panorama of the battle of Gettysburg. But let me kalsomine you a little mental sketch to consider. Up to date we’re out $385.50 on this scheme. Our capital took every cent both of us could raise. We’ve got about enough left to get back to New York on. I need my share of that ten thousand. I want to work a copper deal in Idaho, and make a hundred thousand. That’s the business end of the thing. Come down off your art perch, Carry, and let’s land that hatful of dollars.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Billy,” said White, with an effort, “I’ll try. I won’t say I’ll do it, but I’ll try. I’ll go at it, and put it through if I can.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s business,” said Keogh heartily. “Good boy! Now, here’s another thing—rush that picture—crowd it through as quick as you can. Get a couple of boys to help you mix the paint if necessary. I’ve picked up some pointers around town. The people here are beginning to get sick of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> President. They say he’s been too free with concessions; and they accuse him of trying to make a dicker with England to sell out the country. We want that picture done and paid for before there’s any row.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s business,” said Keogh heartily. “Good boy! Now, here’s another thing—rush that picture—crowd it through as quick as you can. Get a couple of boys to help you mix the paint if necessary. I’ve picked up some pointers around town. The people here are beginning to get sick of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> President. They say he’s been too free with concessions; and they accuse him of trying to make a dicker with England to sell out the country. We want that picture done and paid for before there’s any row.”</p>
|
||||
<p>In the great patio of Casa Morena, the president caused to be stretched a huge canvas. Under this White set up his temporary studio. For two hours each day the great man sat to him.</p>
|
||||
<p>White worked faithfully. But, as the work progressed, he had seasons of bitter scorn, of infinite self-contempt, of sullen gloom and sardonic gaiety. Keogh, with the patience of a great general, soothed, coaxed, argued—kept him at the picture.</p>
|
||||
<p>At the end of a month White announced that the picture was completed—Jupiter, Washington, angels, clouds, cannon and all. His face was pale and his mouth drawn straight when he told Keogh. He said the president was much pleased with it. It was to be hung in the National Gallery of Statesmen and Heroes. The artist had been requested to return to Casa Morena on the following day to receive payment. At the appointed time he left the hotel, silent under his friend’s joyful talk of their success.</p>
|
||||
@ -86,7 +86,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Wrong,” said Keogh with shining eyes. “It’s a slung-shot. It’s a can of dynamite. It’s a gold mine. It’s a sight-draft on your president man for twenty thousand dollars—yes, sir—twenty thousand this time, and no spoiling the picture. No ethics of art in the way. Art! You with your smelly little tubes! I’ve got you skinned to death with a kodak. Take a look at that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>White took the picture in his hand, and gave a long whistle.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jove!” he exclaimed, “but wouldn’t that stir up a row in town if you let it be seen. How in the world did you get it, Billy?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You know that high wall around the president man’s back garden? I was up there trying to get a bird’s-eye of the town. I happened to notice a chink in the wall where a stone and a lot of plaster had slid out. Thinks I, I’ll take a peep through to see how <abbr>Mr.</abbr> President’s cabbages are growing. The first thing I saw was him and this Sir Englishman sitting at a little table about twenty feet away. They had the table all spread over with documents, and they were hobnobbing over them as thick as two pirates. ’Twas a nice corner of the garden, all private and shady with palms and orange trees, and they had a pail of champagne set by handy in the grass. I knew then was the time for me to make my big hit in Art. So I raised the machine up to the crack, and pressed the button. Just as I did so them old boys shook hands on the deal—you see they took that way in the picture.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You know that high wall around the president man’s back garden? I was up there trying to get a bird’s-eye of the town. I happened to notice a chink in the wall where a stone and a lot of plaster had slid out. Thinks I, I’ll take a peep through to see how <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> President’s cabbages are growing. The first thing I saw was him and this Sir Englishman sitting at a little table about twenty feet away. They had the table all spread over with documents, and they were hobnobbing over them as thick as two pirates. ’Twas a nice corner of the garden, all private and shady with palms and orange trees, and they had a pail of champagne set by handy in the grass. I knew then was the time for me to make my big hit in Art. So I raised the machine up to the crack, and pressed the button. Just as I did so them old boys shook hands on the deal—you see they took that way in the picture.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Keogh put on his coat and hat.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What are you going to do with it?” asked White.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Me,” said Keogh in a hurt tone, “why, I’m going to tie a pink ribbon to it and hang it on the whatnot, of course. I’m surprised at you. But while I’m out you just try to figure out what ginger-cake potentate would be most likely to want to buy this work of art for his private collection—just to keep it out of circulation.”</p>
|
||||
@ -95,7 +95,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Let’s try the feel of one,” said White, curiously. “I never saw a thousand-dollar bill.” Keogh did not immediately respond.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Carry,” he said, in an absentminded way, “you think a heap of your art, don’t you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“More,” said White, frankly, “than has been for the financial good of myself and my friends.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought you were a fool the other day,” went on Keogh, quietly, “and I’m not sure now that you wasn’t. But if you was, so am I. I’ve been in some funny deals, Carry, but I’ve always managed to scramble fair, and match my brains and capital against the other fellow’s. But when it comes to—well, when you’ve got the other fellow cinched, and the screws on him, and he’s got to put up—why, it don’t strike me as being a man’s game. They’ve got a name for it, you know; it’s—confound you, don’t you understand? A fellow feels—it’s something like that blamed art of yours—he—well, I tore that photograph up and laid the pieces on that stack of money and shoved the whole business back across the table. ‘Excuse me, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Losada,’ I said, ‘but I guess I’ve made a mistake in the price. You get the photo for nothing.’ Now, Carry, you get out the pencil, and we’ll do some more figuring. I’d like to save enough out of our capital for you to have some fried sausages in your joint when you get back to New York.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought you were a fool the other day,” went on Keogh, quietly, “and I’m not sure now that you wasn’t. But if you was, so am I. I’ve been in some funny deals, Carry, but I’ve always managed to scramble fair, and match my brains and capital against the other fellow’s. But when it comes to—well, when you’ve got the other fellow cinched, and the screws on him, and he’s got to put up—why, it don’t strike me as being a man’s game. They’ve got a name for it, you know; it’s—confound you, don’t you understand? A fellow feels—it’s something like that blamed art of yours—he—well, I tore that photograph up and laid the pieces on that stack of money and shoved the whole business back across the table. ‘Excuse me, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Losada,’ I said, ‘but I guess I’ve made a mistake in the price. You get the photo for nothing.’ Now, Carry, you get out the pencil, and we’ll do some more figuring. I’d like to save enough out of our capital for you to have some fried sausages in your joint when you get back to New York.”</p>
|
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</article>
|
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</body>
|
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</html>
|
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@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="memoirs-of-a-yellow-dog" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Memoirs of a Yellow Dog</h2>
|
||||
<p>I don’t suppose it will knock any of you people off your perch to read a contribution from an animal. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kipling and a good many others have demonstrated the fact that animals can express themselves in remunerative English, and no magazine goes to press nowadays without an animal story in it, except the old-style monthlies that are still running pictures of Bryan and the Mont Pélee horror.</p>
|
||||
<p>I don’t suppose it will knock any of you people off your perch to read a contribution from an animal. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Kipling and a good many others have demonstrated the fact that animals can express themselves in remunerative English, and no magazine goes to press nowadays without an animal story in it, except the old-style monthlies that are still running pictures of Bryan and the Mont Pélee horror.</p>
|
||||
<p>But you needn’t look for any stuck-up literature in my piece, such as Bearoo, the bear, and Snakoo, the snake, and Tammanoo, the tiger, talk in the jungle books. A yellow dog that’s spent most of his life in a cheap New York flat, sleeping in a corner on an old sateen underskirt (the one she spilled port wine on at the Lady Longshoremen’s banquet), mustn’t be expected to perform any tricks with the art of speech.</p>
|
||||
<p>I was born a yellow pup; date, locality, pedigree and weight unknown. The first thing I can recollect, an old woman had me in a basket at Broadway and Twenty-third trying to sell me to a fat lady. Old Mother Hubbard was boosting me to beat the band as a genuine Pomeranian-Hambletonian-Red-Irish-Cochin-China-Stoke-Pogis fox terrier. The fat lady chased a <span epub:type="z3998:roman">V</span> around among the samples of gros grain flannelette in her shopping bag till she cornered it, and gave up. From that moment I was a pet—a mamma’s own wootsey squidlums. Say, gentle reader, did you ever have a 200-pound woman breathing a flavour of <span xml:lang="fr">Camembert</span> cheese and <i xml:lang="fr">Peau d’Espagne</i> pick you up and wallop her nose all over you, remarking all the time in an Emma Eames tone of voice: “Oh, oo’s um oodlum, doodlum, woodlum, toodlum, bitsy-witsy skoodlums?”</p>
|
||||
<p>From a pedigreed yellow pup I grew up to be an anonymous yellow cur looking like a cross between an Angora cat and a box of lemons. But my mistress never tumbled. She thought that the two primeval pups that Noah chased into the ark were but a collateral branch of my ancestors. It took two policemen to keep her from entering me at the Madison Square Garden for the Siberian bloodhound prize.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -36,7 +36,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Come in, Bunk,’ says the farmer, ‘and look at my place. It’s kind of lonesome here sometimes. I think that’s New York calling.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“We went inside. The room looked like a Broadway stockbroker’s—light oak desks, two phones, Spanish leather upholstered chairs and couches, oil paintings in gilt frames a foot deep and a ticker hitting off the news in one corner.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Hello, hello!’ says this funny farmer. ‘Is that the Regent Theatre? Yes; this is Plunkett, of Woodbine Centre. Reserve four orchestra seats for Friday evening—my usual ones. Yes; Friday—goodbye.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I run over to New York every two weeks to see a show,’ says the farmer, hanging up the receiver. ‘I catch the eighteen-hour flyer at Indianapolis, spend ten hours in the heyday of night on the Yappian Way, and get home in time to see the chickens go to roost forty-eight hours later. Oh, the pristine Hubbard squasherino of the cave-dwelling period is getting geared up some for the annual meeting of the Don’t-Blow-Out-the-Gas Association, don’t you think, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bunk?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I run over to New York every two weeks to see a show,’ says the farmer, hanging up the receiver. ‘I catch the eighteen-hour flyer at Indianapolis, spend ten hours in the heyday of night on the Yappian Way, and get home in time to see the chickens go to roost forty-eight hours later. Oh, the pristine Hubbard squasherino of the cave-dwelling period is getting geared up some for the annual meeting of the Don’t-Blow-Out-the-Gas Association, don’t you think, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bunk?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I seem to perceive,’ says I, ‘a kind of hiatus in the agrarian traditions in which heretofore, I have reposed confidence.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Sure, Bunk,’ says he. ‘The yellow primrose on the river’s brim is getting to look to us Reubs like a holiday edition de luxe of the Language of Flowers with deckle edges and frontispiece.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Just then the telephone calls him again.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -23,25 +23,25 @@
|
||||
<p>Colonel Falcon soon came to the reasonable conclusion that if anyone in Coralio could furnish a clue to the vanished money, Frank Goodwin must be the man. But the wise secretary pursued a different course in seeking information from the American. Goodwin was a powerful friend to the new administration, and one who was not to be carelessly dealt with in respect to either his honesty or his courage. Even the private secretary of His Excellency hesitated to have this rubber prince and mahogany baron haled before him as a common citizen of Anchuria. So he sent Goodwin a flowery epistle, each word-petal dripping with honey, requesting the favour of an interview. Goodwin replied with an invitation to dinner at his own house.</p>
|
||||
<p>Before the hour named the American walked over to the Casa Morena, and greeted his guest frankly and friendly. Then the two strolled, in the cool of the afternoon, to Goodwin’s home in the environs.</p>
|
||||
<p>The American left Colonel Falcon in a big, cool, shadowed room with a floor of inlaid and polished woods that any millionaire in the States would have envied, excusing himself for a few minutes. He crossed a patio, shaded with deftly arranged awnings and plants, and entered a long room looking upon the sea in the opposite wing of the house. The broad jalousies were opened wide, and the ocean breeze flowed in through the room, an invisible current of coolness and health. Goodwin’s wife sat near one of the windows, making a watercolor sketch of the afternoon seascape.</p>
|
||||
<p>Here was a woman who looked to be happy. And more—she looked to be content. Had a poet been inspired to pen just similes concerning her favour, he would have likened her full, clear eyes, with their white-encircled, gray irises, to moonflowers. With none of the goddesses whose traditional charms have become coldly classic would the discerning rhymester have compared her. She was purely Paradisaic, not Olympian. If you can imagine Eve, after the eviction, beguiling the flaming warriors and serenely re-entering the Garden, you will have her. Just so human, and still so harmonious with Eden seemed <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin.</p>
|
||||
<p>Here was a woman who looked to be happy. And more—she looked to be content. Had a poet been inspired to pen just similes concerning her favour, he would have likened her full, clear eyes, with their white-encircled, gray irises, to moonflowers. With none of the goddesses whose traditional charms have become coldly classic would the discerning rhymester have compared her. She was purely Paradisaic, not Olympian. If you can imagine Eve, after the eviction, beguiling the flaming warriors and serenely re-entering the Garden, you will have her. Just so human, and still so harmonious with Eden seemed <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin.</p>
|
||||
<p>When her husband entered she looked up, and her lips curved and parted; her eyelids fluttered twice or thrice—a movement remindful (Poesy forgive us!) of the tail-wagging of a faithful dog—and a little ripple went through her like the commotion set up in a weeping willow by a puff of wind. Thus she ever acknowledged his coming, were it twenty times a day. If they who sometimes sat over their wine in Coralio, reshaping old, diverting stories of the madcap career of Isabel Guilbert, could have seen the wife of Frank Goodwin that afternoon in the estimable aura of her happy wifehood, they might have disbelieved, or have agreed to forget, those graphic annals of the life of the one for whom their president gave up his country and his honour.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I have brought a guest to dinner,” said Goodwin. “One Colonel Falcon, from San Mateo. He is come on government business. I do not think you will care to see him, so I prescribe for you one of those convenient and indisputable feminine headaches.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He has come to inquire about the lost money, has he not?” asked <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin, going on with her sketch.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He has come to inquire about the lost money, has he not?” asked <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin, going on with her sketch.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A good guess!” acknowledged Goodwin. “He has been holding an inquisition among the natives for three days. I am next on his list of witnesses, but as he feels shy about dragging one of Uncle Sam’s subjects before him, he consents to give it the outward appearance of a social function. He will apply the torture over my own wine and provender.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Has he found anyone who saw the valise of money?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not a soul. Even Madama Ortiz, whose eyes are so sharp for the sight of a revenue official, does not remember that there was any baggage.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin laid down her brush and sighed.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin laid down her brush and sighed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am so sorry, Frank,” she said, “that they are giving you so much trouble about the money. But we can’t let them know about it, can we?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not without doing our intelligence a great injustice,” said Goodwin, with a smile and a shrug that he had picked up from the natives. “<i xml:lang="es">Americano</i>, though I am, they would have me in the calaboza in half an hour if they knew we had appropriated that valise. No; we must appear as ignorant about the money as the other ignoramuses in Coralio.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you think that this man they have sent suspects you?” she asked, with a little pucker of her brows.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’d better not,” said the American, carelessly. “It’s lucky that no one caught a sight of the valise except myself. As I was in the rooms when the shot was fired, it is not surprising that they should want to investigate my part in the affair rather closely. But there’s no cause for alarm. This colonel is down on the list of events for a good dinner, with a dessert of American ‘bluff’ that will end the matter, I think.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin rose and walked to the window. Goodwin followed and stood by her side. She leaned to him, and rested in the protection of his strength, as she had always rested since that dark night on which he had first made himself her tower of refuge. Thus they stood for a little while.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin rose and walked to the window. Goodwin followed and stood by her side. She leaned to him, and rested in the protection of his strength, as she had always rested since that dark night on which he had first made himself her tower of refuge. Thus they stood for a little while.</p>
|
||||
<p>Straight through the lavish growth of tropical branch and leaf and vine that confronted them had been cunningly trimmed a vista, that ended at the cleared environs of Coralio, on the banks of the mangrove swamp. At the other end of the aerial tunnel they could see the grave and wooden headpiece that bore the name of the unhappy President Miraflores. From this window when the rains forbade the open, and from the green and shady slopes of Goodwin’s fruitful lands when the skies were smiling, his wife was wont to look upon that grave with a gentle sadness that was now scarcely a mar to her happiness.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I loved him so, Frank!” she said, “even after that terrible flight and its awful ending. And you have been so good to me, and have made me so happy. It has all grown into such a strange puzzle. If they were to find out that we got the money do you think they would force you to make the amount good to the government?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“They would undoubtedly try,” answered Goodwin. “You are right about its being a puzzle. And it must remain a puzzle to Falcon and all his countrymen until it solves itself. You and I, who know more than anyone else, only know half of the solution. We must not let even a hint about this money get abroad. Let them come to the theory that the president concealed it in the mountains during his journey, or that he found means to ship it out of the country before he reached Coralio. I don’t think that Falcon suspects me. He is making a close investigation, according to his orders, but he will find out nothing.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus they spake together. Had anyone overheard or overseen them as they discussed the lost funds of Anchuria there would have been a second puzzle presented. For upon the faces and in the bearing of each of them was visible (if countenances are to be believed) Saxon honesty and pride and honourable thoughts. In Goodwin’s steady eye and firm lineaments, moulded into material shape by the inward spirit of kindness and generosity and courage, there was nothing reconcilable with his words.</p>
|
||||
<p>As for his wife, physiognomy championed her even in the face of their accusive talk. Nobility was in her guise; purity was in her glance. The devotion that she manifested had not even the appearance of that feeling that now and then inspires a woman to share the guilt of her partner out of the pathetic greatness of her love. No, there was a discrepancy here between what the eye would have seen and the ear have heard.</p>
|
||||
<p>Dinner was served to Goodwin and his guest in the patio, under cool foliage and flowers. The American begged the illustrious secretary to excuse the absence of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin, who was suffering, he said, from a headache brought on by a slight <i xml:lang="es">calentura</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>Dinner was served to Goodwin and his guest in the patio, under cool foliage and flowers. The American begged the illustrious secretary to excuse the absence of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin, who was suffering, he said, from a headache brought on by a slight <i xml:lang="es">calentura</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>After the meal they lingered, according to the custom, over their coffee and cigars. Colonel Falcon, with true Castilian delicacy, waited for his host to open the question that they had met to discuss. He had not long to wait. As soon as the cigars were lighted, the American cleared the way by inquiring whether the secretary’s investigations in the town had furnished him with any clue to the lost funds.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I have found no one yet,” admitted Colonel Falcon, “who even had sight of the valise or the money. Yet I have persisted. It has been proven in the capital that President Miraflores set out from San Mateo with one hundred thousand dollars belonging to the government, accompanied by Señorita Isabel Guilbert, the opera singer. The Government, officially and personally, is loathe to believe,” concluded Colonel Falcon, with a smile, “that our late President’s tastes would have permitted him to abandon on the route, as excess baggage, either of the desirable articles with which his flight was burdened.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suppose you would like to hear what I have to say about the affair,” said Goodwin, coming directly to the point. “It will not require many words.</p>
|
||||
@ -68,7 +68,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I must trot along in a minute or two,” hinted Goodwin. “Was there anything in particular?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Blythe did not reply at once.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Old Losada would make it a hot country,” he remarked at length, “for the man who swiped that gripsack of treasury boodle, don’t you think?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Undoubtedly, he would,” agreed Goodwin calmly, as he rose leisurely to his feet. “I’ll be running over to the house now, old man. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin is alone. There was nothing important you had to say, was there?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Undoubtedly, he would,” agreed Goodwin calmly, as he rose leisurely to his feet. “I’ll be running over to the house now, old man. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin is alone. There was nothing important you had to say, was there?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s all,” said Blythe. “Unless you wouldn’t mind sending in another drink from the bar as you go out. Old Espada has closed my account to profit and loss. And pay for the lot, will you, like a good fellow?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said Goodwin. “Buenas noches.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Beelzebub” Blythe lingered over his cups, polishing his eyeglasses with a disreputable handkerchief.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -49,7 +49,7 @@
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>On the west side, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, an alley cuts the block in the middle. It perishes in a little court in the centre of the block. The district is theatrical; the inhabitants, the bubbling froth of half a dozen nations. The atmosphere is Bohemian, the language polyglot, the locality precarious.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the court at the rear of the alley lived the candy man. At seven o’clock he pushed his cart into the narrow entrance, rested it upon the irregular stone slats and sat upon one of the handles to cool himself. There was a great draught of cool wind through the alley.</p>
|
||||
<p>There was a window above the spot where he always stopped his pushcart. In the cool of the afternoon, <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Adèle, drawing card of the Aerial Roof Garden, sat at the window and took the air. Generally her ponderous mass of dark auburn hair was down, that the breeze might have the felicity of aiding Sidonie, the maid, in drying and airing it. About her shoulders—the point of her that the photographers always made the most of—was loosely draped a heliotrope scarf. Her arms to the elbow were bare—there were no sculptors there to rave over them—but even the stolid bricks in the walls of the alley should not have been so insensate as to disapprove. While she sat thus Félice, another maid, anointed and bathed the small feet that twinkled and so charmed the nightly Aerial audiences.</p>
|
||||
<p>There was a window above the spot where he always stopped his pushcart. In the cool of the afternoon, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> Adèle, drawing card of the Aerial Roof Garden, sat at the window and took the air. Generally her ponderous mass of dark auburn hair was down, that the breeze might have the felicity of aiding Sidonie, the maid, in drying and airing it. About her shoulders—the point of her that the photographers always made the most of—was loosely draped a heliotrope scarf. Her arms to the elbow were bare—there were no sculptors there to rave over them—but even the stolid bricks in the walls of the alley should not have been so insensate as to disapprove. While she sat thus Félice, another maid, anointed and bathed the small feet that twinkled and so charmed the nightly Aerial audiences.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gradually Mademoiselle began to notice the candy man stopping to mop his brow and cool himself beneath her window. In the hands of her maids she was deprived for the time of her vocation—the charming and binding to her chariot of man. To lose time was displeasing to Mademoiselle. Here was the candy man—no fit game for her darts, truly—but of the sex upon which she had been born to make war.</p>
|
||||
<p>After casting upon him looks of unseeing coldness for a dozen times, one afternoon she suddenly thawed and poured down upon him a smile that put to shame the sweets upon his cart.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Candy man,” she said, cooingly, while Sidonie followed her impulsive dive, brushing the heavy auburn hair, “don’t you think I am beautiful?”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
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