[Voice] [Editorial] some one -> someone
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<p>Gillian went to his club. There he hunted out one whom he called Old Bryson.</p>
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<p>Old Bryson was calm and forty and sequestered. He was in a corner reading a book, and when he saw Gillian approaching he sighed, laid down his book and took off his glasses.</p>
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<p>“Old Bryson, wake up,” said Gillian. “I’ve a funny story to tell you.”</p>
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<p>“I wish you would tell it to some one in the billiard room,” said Old Bryson. “You know how I hate your stories.”</p>
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<p>“I wish you would tell it to someone in the billiard room,” said Old Bryson. “You know how I hate your stories.”</p>
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<p>“This is a better one than usual,” said Gillian, rolling a cigarette; “and I’m glad to tell it to you. It’s too sad and funny to go with the rattling of billiard balls. I’ve just come from my late uncle’s firm of legal corsairs. He leaves me an even thousand dollars. Now, what can a man possibly do with a thousand dollars?”</p>
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<p>“I thought,” said Old Bryson, showing as much interest as a bee shows in a vinegar cruet, “that the late Septimus Gillian was worth something like half a million.”</p>
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<p>“He was,” assented Gillian, joyously, “and that’s where the joke comes in. He’s left his whole cargo of doubloons to a microbe. That is, part of it goes to the man who invents a new bacillus and the rest to establish a hospital for doing away with it again. There are one or two trifling bequests on the side. The butler and the housekeeper get a seal ring and $10 each. His nephew gets $1,000.”</p>
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<p>“Now, ’twas a peaceful and happy home that all of us had in them same Beersheba Flats. The O’Dowds and the Steinowitzes and the Callahans and the Cohens and the Spizzinellis and the McManuses and the Spiegelmayers and the Joneses—all nations of us, we lived like one big family together. And when the hot nights come along we kept a line of children reaching from the front door to Kelly’s on the corner passing along the cans of beer from one to another without the trouble of running after it. And with no more clothing on than is provided for in the statutes, sitting in all the windies, with a cool growler in everyone, and your feet out in the air, and the Rosenstein girls singing on the fire-escape of the sixth floor, and Patsy Rourke’s flute going in the eighth, and the ladies calling each other synonyms out the windies, and now and then a breeze sailing in over Mister Depew’s Central—I tell you the Beersheba Flats was a summer resort that made the Catskills look like a hole in the ground. With his person full of beer and his feet out the windy and his old woman frying pork chops over a charcoal furnace and the childher dancing in cotton slips on the sidewalk around the organ-grinder and the rent paid for a week—what does a man want better on a hot night than that? And then comes this ruling of the polis driving people out o’ their comfortable homes to sleep in parks—’twas for all the world like a ukase of them Russians—’twill be heard from again at next election time.</p>
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<p>“Well, then, Officer Reagan drives the whole lot of us to the park and turns us in by the nearest gate. ’Tis dark under the trees, and all the children sets up to howling that they want to go home.</p>
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<p>“ ‘Ye’ll pass the night in this stretch of woods and scenery,’ says Officer Reagan. ”Twill be fine and imprisonment for insoolting the Park Commissioner and the Chief of the Weather Bureau if ye refuse. I’m in charge of thirty acres between here and the Agyptian Monument, and I advise ye to give no trouble. ’Tis sleeping on the grass yez all have been condemned to by the authorities. Yez’ll be permitted to leave in the morning, but ye must retoorn be night. Me orders was silent on the subject of bail, but I’ll find out if ’tis required and there’ll be bondsmen at the gate.’</p>
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<p>“There being no lights except along the automobile drives, us 179 tenants of the Beersheba Flats prepared to spend the night as best we could in the raging forest. Them that brought blankets and kindling wood was best off. They got fires started and wrapped the blankets round their heads and laid down, cursing, in the grass. There was nothing to see, nothing to drink, nothing to do. In the dark we had no way of telling friend or foe except by feeling the noses of ’em. I brought along me last winter overcoat, me toothbrush, some quinine pills and the red quilt off the bed in me flat. Three times during the night somebody rolled on me quilt and stuck his knees against the Adam’s apple of me. And three times I judged his character by running me hand over his face, and three times I rose up and kicked the intruder down the hill to the gravelly walk below. And then some one with a flavour of Kelly’s whiskey snuggled up to me, and I found his nose turned up the right way, and I says: ‘Is that you, then, Patsey?’ and he says, ‘It is, Carney. How long do you think it’ll last?’</p>
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<p>“There being no lights except along the automobile drives, us 179 tenants of the Beersheba Flats prepared to spend the night as best we could in the raging forest. Them that brought blankets and kindling wood was best off. They got fires started and wrapped the blankets round their heads and laid down, cursing, in the grass. There was nothing to see, nothing to drink, nothing to do. In the dark we had no way of telling friend or foe except by feeling the noses of ’em. I brought along me last winter overcoat, me toothbrush, some quinine pills and the red quilt off the bed in me flat. Three times during the night somebody rolled on me quilt and stuck his knees against the Adam’s apple of me. And three times I judged his character by running me hand over his face, and three times I rose up and kicked the intruder down the hill to the gravelly walk below. And then someone with a flavour of Kelly’s whiskey snuggled up to me, and I found his nose turned up the right way, and I says: ‘Is that you, then, Patsey?’ and he says, ‘It is, Carney. How long do you think it’ll last?’</p>
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<p>“ ‘I’m no weather-prophet,’ says I, ‘but if they bring out a strong anti-Tammany ticket next fall it ought to get us home in time to sleep on a bed once or twice before they line us up at the polls.’</p>
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<p>“ ‘A-playing of my flute into the airshaft, says Patsey Rourke, ‘and a-perspiring in me own windy to the joyful noise of the passing trains and the smell of liver and onions and a-reading of the latest murder in the smoke of the cooking is well enough for me,’ says he. ‘What is this herding us in grass for, not to mention the crawling things with legs that walk up the trousers of us, and the Jersey snipes that peck at us, masquerading under the name and denomination of mosquitoes. What is it all for Carney, and the rint going on just the same over at the flats?’</p>
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<p>“”Tis the great annual Municipal Free Night Outing Lawn Party,’ says I, ‘given by the polis, Hetty Green and the Drug Trust. During the heated season they hold a week of it in the principal parks. ’Tis a scheme to reach that portion of the people that’s not worth taking up to North Beach for a fish fry.’</p>
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<p>“Well, I don’t know,” said Woods, reflecting. “Some of the papers have done good work in that line. There’s the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i>, for instance. It warmed up two or three trails, and got the man after the police had let ’em get cold.”</p>
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<p>“I’ll show you,” said Kernan, rising, and expanding his chest. “I’ll show you what I think of newspapers in general, and your <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i> in particular.”</p>
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<p>Three feet from their table was the telephone booth. Kernan went inside and sat at the instrument, leaving the door open. He found a number in the book, took down the receiver and made his demand upon Central. Woods sat still, looking at the sneering, cold, vigilant face waiting close to the transmitter, and listened to the words that came from the thin, truculent lips curved into a contemptuous smile.</p>
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<p>“That the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i>? … I want to speak to the managing editor … Why, tell him it’s some one who wants to talk to him about the Norcross murder.</p>
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<p>“That the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i>? … I want to speak to the managing editor … Why, tell him it’s someone who wants to talk to him about the Norcross murder.</p>
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<p>“You the editor? … All right … I am the man who killed old Norcross … Wait! Hold the wire; I’m not the usual crank … Oh, there isn’t the slightest danger. I’ve just been discussing it with a detective friend of mine. I killed the old man at 2:30 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> two weeks ago tomorrow … Have a drink with you? Now, hadn’t you better leave that kind of talk to your funny man? Can’t you tell whether a man’s guying you or whether you’re being offered the biggest scoop your dull dishrag of a paper ever had? … Well, that’s so; it’s a bobtail scoop—but you can hardly expect me to ‘phone in my name and address … Why? Oh, because I heard you make a specialty of solving mysterious crimes that stump the police … No, that’s not all. I want to tell you that your rotten, lying, penny sheet is of no more use in tracking an intelligent murderer or highwayman than a blind poodle would be … What? … Oh, no, this isn’t a rival newspaper office; you’re getting it straight. I did the Norcross job, and I’ve got the jewels in my suit case at—‘the name of the hotel could not be learned’—you recognize that phrase, don’t you? I thought so. You’ve used it often enough. Kind of rattles you, doesn’t it, to have the mysterious villain call up your great, big, all-powerful organ of right and justice and good government and tell you what a helpless old gasbag you are? … Cut that out; you’re not that big a fool—no, you don’t think I’m a fraud. I can tell it by your voice … Now, listen, and I’ll give you a pointer that will prove it to you. Of course you’ve had this murder case worked over by your staff of bright young blockheads. Half of the second button on old <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Norcross’s nightgown is broken off. I saw it when I took the garnet ring off her finger. I thought it was a ruby … Stop that! it won’t work.”</p>
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<p>Kernan turned to Woods with a diabolic smile.</p>
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<p>“I’ve got him going. He believes me now. He didn’t quite cover the transmitter with his hand when he told somebody to call up Central on another ‘phone and get our number. I’ll give him just one more dig, and then we’ll make a ‘getaway.’</p>
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<p>She was standing by the window when he entered their room. She was still clothed as when they were on the porch. Outside and crowding against the window was a giant apple tree, full blossomed.</p>
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<p>Robert sighed and went near the window. He was ready to meet his fate. A confessed vulgarian, he foresaw the verdict of justice in the shape of that whiteclad form. He knew the rigid lines that a Van Der Pool would draw. He was a peasant gambolling indecorously in the valley, and the pure, cold, white, unthawed summit of the Matterhorn could not but frown on him. He had been unmasked by his own actions. All the polish, the poise, the form that the city had given him had fallen from him like an ill-fitting mantle at the first breath of a country breeze. Dully he awaited the approaching condemnation.</p>
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<p>“Robert,” said the calm, cool voice of his judge, “I thought I married a gentleman.”</p>
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<p>Yes, it was coming. And yet, in the face of it, Robert Walmsley was eagerly regarding a certain branch of the apple tree upon which he used to climb out of that very window. He believed he could do it now. He wondered how many blossoms there were on the tree—ten millions? But here was some one speaking again:</p>
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<p>Yes, it was coming. And yet, in the face of it, Robert Walmsley was eagerly regarding a certain branch of the apple tree upon which he used to climb out of that very window. He believed he could do it now. He wondered how many blossoms there were on the tree—ten millions? But here was someone speaking again:</p>
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<p>“I thought I married a gentleman,” the voice went on, “but—”</p>
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<p>Why had she come and was standing so close by his side?</p>
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<p>“But I find that I have married”—was this Alicia talking?—“something better—a man—Bob, dear, kiss me, won’t you?”</p>
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<p>I read that story, and I jumped up, late as it was, with a whoop of joy. Old Pettit had done it. Just as though it lay there, red and bleeding, a woman’s heart was written into the lines. You couldn’t see the joining, but art, exquisite art, and pulsing nature had been combined into a love story that took you by the throat like the quinsy. I broke into Pettit’s room and beat him on the back and called him names—names high up in the galaxy of the immortals that we admired. And Pettit yawned and begged to be allowed to sleep.</p>
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<p>On the morrow, I dragged him to an editor. The great man read, and, rising, gave Pettit his hand. That was a decoration, a wreath of bay, and a guarantee of rent.</p>
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<p>And then old Pettit smiled slowly. I call him Gentleman Pettit now to myself. It’s a miserable name to give a man, but it sounds better than it looks in print.</p>
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<p>“I see,” said old Pettit, as he took up his story and began tearing it into small strips. “I see the game now. You can’t write with ink, and you can’t write with your own heart’s blood, but you can write with the heart’s blood of some one else. You have to be a cad before you can be an artist. Well, I am for old Alabam and the Major’s store. Have you got a light, Old Hoss?”</p>
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<p>“I see,” said old Pettit, as he took up his story and began tearing it into small strips. “I see the game now. You can’t write with ink, and you can’t write with your own heart’s blood, but you can write with the heart’s blood of someone else. You have to be a cad before you can be an artist. Well, I am for old Alabam and the Major’s store. Have you got a light, Old Hoss?”</p>
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<p>I went with Pettit to the dêpôt and died hard.</p>
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<p>“Shakespeare’s sonnets?” I blurted, making a last stand. “How about him?”</p>
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<p>“A cad,” said Pettit. “They give it to you, and you sell it—love, you know. I’d rather sell ploughs for father.”</p>
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<p>“Quit yer kiddin’,” said the boy. “Wot paper yer want? I got no time to waste. It’s Mag’s birthday, and I want thirty cents to git her a present.”</p>
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<p>Here was no interpreter of the city’s mouthpiece. I bought a paper, and consigned its undeclared treaties, its premeditated murders and unfought battles to an ash can.</p>
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<p>Again I repaired to the park and sat in the moon shade. I thought and thought, and wondered why none could tell me what I asked for.</p>
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<p>And then, as swift as light from a fixed star, the answer came to me. I arose and hurried—hurried as so many reasoners must, back around my circle. I knew the answer and I hugged it in my breast as I flew, fearing lest some one would stop me and demand my secret.</p>
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<p>And then, as swift as light from a fixed star, the answer came to me. I arose and hurried—hurried as so many reasoners must, back around my circle. I knew the answer and I hugged it in my breast as I flew, fearing lest someone would stop me and demand my secret.</p>
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<p>Aurelia was still on the stoop. The moon was higher and the ivy shadows were deeper. I sat at her side and we watched a little cloud tilt at the drifting moon and go asunder quite pale and discomfited.</p>
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<p>And then, wonder of wonders and delight of delights! our hands somehow touched, and our fingers closed together and did not part.</p>
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<p>After half an hour Aurelia said, with that smile of hers:</p>
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