Proofreading corrections, get TOC in data of publication order
This commit is contained in:
vr8ce
parent
b31bd3d465
commit
eeb4b53c24
@ -177,7 +177,6 @@
|
||||
<item href="text/after-twenty-years.xhtml" id="after-twenty-years.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
|
||||
<item href="text/an-adjustment-of-nature.xhtml" id="an-adjustment-of-nature.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
|
||||
<item href="text/an-afternoon-miracle.xhtml" id="an-afternoon-miracle.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
|
||||
<item href="text/an-apology.xhtml" id="an-apology.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
|
||||
<item href="text/an-expensive-veracity.xhtml" id="an-expensive-veracity.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
|
||||
<item href="text/an-inspiration.xhtml" id="an-inspiration.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
|
||||
<item href="text/an-opportunity-declined.xhtml" id="an-opportunity-declined.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
|
||||
@ -504,384 +503,384 @@
|
||||
<spine>
|
||||
<itemref idref="titlepage.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="imprint.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-bird-of-bagdad.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-blackjack-bargainer.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-call-loan.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-chaparral-christmas-gift.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-chaparral-prince.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-cheering-thought.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-comedy-in-rubber.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-conditional-pardon.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-cosmopolite-in-a-cafe.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-departmental-case.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-dinner-at-.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-disagreement.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-double-dyed-deceiver.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-fatal-error.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-fog-in-santone.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-ghost-of-a-chance.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-good-story-spoiled.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-green-hand.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-guarded-secret.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-guess-proof-mystery-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-harlem-tragedy.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-lickpenny-lover.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-little-local-colour.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-little-talk-about-mobs.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-madison-square-arabian-night.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-matter-of-loyalty.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-matter-of-mean-elevation.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-midsummer-knights-dream.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-midsummer-masquerade.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-municipal-report.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-narrow-escape.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-newspaper-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-night-in-new-arabia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-personal-insult.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-philistine-in-bohemia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-poor-rule.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-question-of-direction.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-ramble-in-aphasia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-retrieved-reformation.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-righteous-outburst.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-ruler-of-men.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-sacrifice-hit.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-service-of-love.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-slight-mistake.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-snapshot-at-the-president.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-sporting-interest.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-startling-demonstration.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-strange-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-sure-method.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-technical-error.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-tempered-wind.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-universal-favorite.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-valedictory.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-villainous-trick.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-years-supply.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="according-to-their-lights.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="after-supper.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="after-twenty-years.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-adjustment-of-nature.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-afternoon-miracle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-apology.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-expensive-veracity.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-inspiration.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-opportunity-declined.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-original-idea.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-unfinished-christmas-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-unfinished-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-unsuccessful-experiment.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-x-ray-fable.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="answers-to-inquiries.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="aristocracy-versus-hash.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="art-and-the-bronco.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="at-arms-with-morpheus.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="babes-in-the-jungle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="best-seller.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="between-rounds.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="bexar-scrip-no-2692.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="bill-nye.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="blind-mans-holiday.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="board-and-ancestors.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="book-reviews.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="brickdust-row.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="buried-treasure.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="buying-a-piano.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="by-courier.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="by-easy-stages.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="calculations.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="calloways-code.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="caught.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="cherchez-la-femme.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="christmas-by-injunction.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="city-perils.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="coming-to-him.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="compliments-of-the-season.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="confessions-of-a-humorist.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="conscience-in-art.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="convinced.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="correcting-a-great-injustice.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="cupid-a-la-carte.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="cupids-exile-number-two.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="dicky.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="doughertys-eye-opener.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="elsie-in-new-york.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="even-worse.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="explaining-it.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="extradited-from-bohemia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="fickle-fortune-or-how-gladys-hustled.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="fox-in-the-morning.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="friends-in-san-rosario.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="from-each-according-to-his-ability.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="from-the-cabbys-seat.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="georgias-ruling.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="getting-acquainted.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="getting-at-the-facts.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="girl.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="grounds-for-uneasiness.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="guessed-everything-else.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="had-a-use-for-it.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="he-also-serves.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hearts-and-crosses.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hearts-and-hands.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="helping-the-other-fellow.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="her-failing.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="her-mysterious-charm.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="her-ruse.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="his-dilemma.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="his-doubt.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="his-only-opportunity.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="his-tension.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="holding-up-a-train.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hostages-to-momus.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="how-it-started.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hungry-henrys-ruse.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hush-money.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hygeia-at-the-solito.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="identified.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="innocents-of-broadway.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="jeff-peters-as-a-personal-magnet.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="jimmy-hayes-and-muriel.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="journalistically-impossible.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="just-a-little-damp.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="knew-what-was-needed.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="law-and-order.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="leap-year-advice.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="let-me-feel-your-pulse.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="little-speck-in-garnered-fruit.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="lord-oakhursts-curse.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="lost-on-dress-parade.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="lucky-either-way.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="madame-bo-peep-of-the-ranches.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="makes-the-whole-world-kin.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="mammon-and-the-archer.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="man-about-town.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="marvelous.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="masters-of-arts.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="memoirs-of-a-yellow-dog.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="modern-rural-sports.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="money-maze.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="nemesis-and-the-candy-man.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="new-york-by-camp-fire-light.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="next-to-reading-matter.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="no-help-for-it.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="no-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="no-time-to-lose.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="not-so-much-a-tam-fool.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="october-and-june.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="on-behalf-of-the-management.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="one-consolation.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="one-dollars-worth.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="one-thousand-dollars.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="out-of-nazareth.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="past-one-at-rooneys.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="phoebe.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="proof-of-the-pudding.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="psyche-and-the-pskyscraper.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="bexar-scrip-no-2692.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="queries-and-answers.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="recognition.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="reconciliation.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="red-conliris-eloquence.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="relieved.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="revenge.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="ridiculous.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="roads-of-destiny.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="roses-ruses-and-romance.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="rouge-et-noir.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="round-the-circle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="rus-in-urbe.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="schools-and-schools.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="seats-of-the-haughty.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="shearing-the-wolf.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="ships.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="shoes.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="sisters-of-the-golden-circle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="slightly-mixed.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="smith.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="sociology-in-serge-and-straw.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="solemn-thoughts.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="some-ancient-news-notes.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="somebody-lied.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="something-for-baby.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="sound-and-fury.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="speaking-of-big-winds.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="springtime-a-la-carte.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="squaring-the-circle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="strictly-business.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="suite-homes-and-their-romance.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="supply-and-demand.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="aristocracy-versus-hash.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="fickle-fortune-or-how-gladys-hustled.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-strange-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-prisoner-of-zembla-by-anthony-hoke.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-great-french-detective-in-austin.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="tracked-to-doom.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-snapshot-at-the-president.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sensitive-colonel-jay.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="taking-no-chances.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="telemachus-friend.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-admiral.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-adventures-of-shamrock-jolnes.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-apple.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-assessor-of-success.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-atavism-of-john-tom-little-bear.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-matter-of-loyalty.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-other-side-of-it.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="journalistically-impossible.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-power-of-reputation.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-distraction-of-grief.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-sporting-interest.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="had-a-use-for-it.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-old-landmark.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-personal-insult.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="reconciliation.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="buying-a-piano.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="too-late.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="just-a-little-damp.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="her-mysterious-charm.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="convinced.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="his-dilemma.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="something-for-baby.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-green-hand.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-righteous-outburst.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="getting-at-the-facts.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="too-wise.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-fatal-error.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-rake-off.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-telegram.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-opportunity-declined.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="correcting-a-great-injustice.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-startling-demonstration.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="leap-year-advice.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="after-supper.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="his-only-opportunity.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="getting-acquainted.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="answers-to-inquiries.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="city-perils.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hush-money.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="relieved.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="no-time-to-lose.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-villainous-trick.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="book-reviews.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-conditional-pardon.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="bill-nye.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-guarded-secret.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-pastel.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="board-and-ancestors.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-x-ray-fable.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-universal-favorite.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sporting-editor-on-culture.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-question-of-direction.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="willing-to-compromise.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="ridiculous.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="guessed-everything-else.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-prisoner-of-zembla.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="lucky-either-way.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-bad-man.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-badge-of-policeman-oroon.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-brief-debut-of-tildy.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-buyer-from-cactus-city.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-caballeros-way.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-cactus.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-caliph-and-the-cad.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-caliph-cupid-and-the-clock.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-call-of-the-tame.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-chair-of-philanthromathematics.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-champion-of-the-weather.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-church-with-an-overshot-wheel.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-city-of-dreadful-night.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-clarion-call.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-colonels-romance.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-coming-out-of-maggie.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-complete-life-of-john-hopkins.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-slight-mistake.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-good-story-spoiled.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="revenge.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="no-help-for-it.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="not-so-much-a-tam-fool.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-guess-proof-mystery-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-wounded-veteran.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="her-ruse.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="why-conductors-are-morose.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sunday-excursionist.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-inspiration.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="coming-to-him.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="his-pension.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-winner.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hungry-henrys-ruse.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="one-consolation.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-unsuccessful-experiment.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="by-easy-stages.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="even-worse.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-shock.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-cynic.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="speaking-of-big-winds.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-original-idea.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="calculations.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-valedictory.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="solemn-thoughts.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="explaining-it.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="her-failing.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-disagreement.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-expensive-veracity.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="grounds-for-uneasiness.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="recognition.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="his-doubt.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-cheering-thought.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="what-it-was.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="identified.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-apple.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="how-it-started.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="red-conlins-eloquence.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="why-he-hesitated.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="somebody-lied.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="marvelous.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-confession-of-a-murderer.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-strangers-appeal.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-good-boy-mostly-in-words-of-one-syllable.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-colonels-romance.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-narrow-escape.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-years-supply.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="slightly-mixed.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="knew-what-was-needed.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="some-ancient-news-notes.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-sure-method.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="whistling-dicks-christmas-stocking.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="georgias-ruling.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-blackjack-bargainer.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-duplicity-of-hargraves.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-passing-of-black-eagle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="cherchez-la-femme.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="friends-in-san-rosario.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-marionettes.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="by-courier.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="madame-bo-peep-of-the-ranches.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-afternoon-miracle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-call-loan.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="cupid-a-la-carte.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-departmental-case.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="round-the-circle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-cactus.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-renaissance-at-charleroi.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hearts-and-hands.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-ghost-of-a-chance.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="art-and-the-bronco.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hygeia-at-the-solito.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="sound-and-fury.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="roads-of-destiny.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-robe-of-peace.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-retrieved-reformation.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="one-dollars-worth.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="while-the-auto-waits.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-guardian-of-the-accolade.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="october-and-june.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-marquis-and-miss-sally.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="out-of-nazareth.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-atavism-of-john-tom-little-bear.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-whirligig-of-life.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-fourth-in-salvador.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="jimmy-hayes-and-muriel.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="tobins-palm.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-lonesome-road.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="confessions-of-a-humorist.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="at-arms-with-morpheus.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-princess-and-the-puma.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-chaparral-christmas-gift.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sphinx-apple.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-pimienta-pancakes.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-social-triangle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-chaparral-prince.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-ferry-of-unfulfilment.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-pendulum.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-hypotheses-of-failure.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="transformation-of-martin-burney.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-little-local-colour.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-newspaper-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-madison-square-arabian-night.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-proem.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="fox-in-the-morning.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-lotus-and-the-bottle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="smith.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="caught.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="cupids-exile-number-two.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-phonograph-and-the-graft.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="money-maze.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-admiral.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-flag-paramount.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-shamrock-and-the-palm.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-remnants-of-the-code.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="shoes.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="ships.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="masters-of-arts.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="dicky.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="rouge-et-noir.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="two-recalls.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-vitagraphoscope.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-gift-of-the-magi.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-cosmopolite-in-a-cafe.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="between-rounds.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-skylight-room.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-service-of-love.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-coming-out-of-maggie.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="man-about-town.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-cop-and-the-anthem.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-adjustment-of-nature.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="memoirs-of-a-yellow-dog.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-love-philtre-of-ikey-schoenstein.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="mammon-and-the-archer.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="springtime-a-la-carte.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-green-door.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="from-the-cabbys-seat.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-unfinished-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-caliph-cupid-and-the-clock.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="sisters-of-the-golden-circle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-romance-of-a-busy-broker.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="after-twenty-years.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="lost-on-dress-parade.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-furnished-room.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-brief-debut-of-tildy.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-ruler-of-men.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-trimmed-lamp.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-rubaiyat-of-a-scotch-highball.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="two-thanksgiving-day-gentlemen.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-assessor-of-success.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-buyer-from-cactus-city.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-badge-of-policeman-oroon.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="brickdust-row.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-making-of-a-new-yorker.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="vanity-and-some-sables.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-purple-dress.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-foreign-policy-of-company-99.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-lost-blend.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-harlem-tragedy.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-guilty-party.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="according-to-their-lights.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-midsummer-knights-dream.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-last-leaf.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-count-and-the-wedding-guest.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-country-of-elusion.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-cynic.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-day-resurgent.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-day-we-celebrate.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-tale-of-a-tainted-tenner.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="elsie-in-new-york.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-dinner-at-.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hearts-and-crosses.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-ransom-of-mack.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="telemachus-friend.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-handbook-of-hymen.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="seats-of-the-haughty.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-higher-abdication.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-caballeros-way.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-missing-chord.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-indian-summer-of-dry-valley-johnson.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="christmas-by-injunction.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-reformation-of-calliope.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-octopus-marooned.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="jeff-peters-as-a-personal-magnet.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="modern-rural-sports.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-chair-of-philanthromathematics.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-hand-that-riles-the-world.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-exact-science-of-matrimony.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-midsummer-masquerade.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="shearing-the-wolf.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="innocents-of-broadway.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="conscience-in-art.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-man-higher-up.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-tempered-wind.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="hostages-to-momus.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-ethics-of-pig.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-voice-of-the-city.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-complete-life-of-john-hopkins.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-lickpenny-lover.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="doughertys-eye-opener.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="little-speck-in-garnered-fruit.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-harbinger.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-comedy-in-rubber.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="one-thousand-dollars.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-defeat-of-the-city.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-detective-detector.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-diamond-of-kali.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-discounters-of-money.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-distraction-of-grief.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-dog-and-the-playlet.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-door-of-unrest.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-dream.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-duel.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-duplicity-of-hargraves.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-shocks-of-doom.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-plutonian-fire.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="nemesis-and-the-candy-man.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="squaring-the-circle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="roses-ruses-and-romance.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-city-of-dreadful-night.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-easter-of-the-soul.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-fool-killer.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="transients-in-arcadia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-rathskeller-and-the-rose.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-clarion-call.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="extradited-from-bohemia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-philistine-in-bohemia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="from-each-according-to-his-ability.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-memento.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="helping-the-other-fellow.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-discounters-of-money.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-enchanted-profile.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="next-to-reading-matter.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="phoebe.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-double-dyed-deceiver.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-emancipation-of-billy.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-enchanted-kiss.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-enchanted-profile.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-ethics-of-pig.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-exact-science-of-matrimony.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-ferry-of-unfulfilment.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-fifth-wheel.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-flag-paramount.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-fool-killer.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-foreign-policy-of-company-99.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-fourth-in-salvador.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-friendly-call.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-furnished-room.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-gift-of-the-magi.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-girl-and-the-graft.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-girl-and-the-habit.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-gold-that-glittered.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-good-boy-mostly-in-words-of-one-syllable.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-great-french-detective-in-austin.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-greater-coney.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-green-door.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-guardian-of-the-accolade.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-guilty-party.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="on-behalf-of-the-management.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-halberdier-of-the-little-rheinschloss.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-hand-that-riles-the-world.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-handbook-of-hymen.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-harbinger.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-head-hunter.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-hiding-of-black-bill.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-higher-abdication.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-higher-pragmatism.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-hypotheses-of-failure.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-indian-summer-of-dry-valley-johnson.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-lady-higher-up.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-last-leaf.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-last-of-the-troubadours.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-lonesome-road.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-lost-blend.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-lotus-and-the-bottle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-love-philtre-of-ikey-schoenstein.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-making-of-a-new-yorker.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-man-higher-up.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-marionettes.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-marquis-and-miss-sally.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-marry-month-of-may.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-memento.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-missing-chord.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-moment-of-victory.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-octopus-marooned.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-old-landmark.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-other-side-of-it.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-passing-of-black-eagle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-pendulum.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-phonograph-and-the-graft.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-pimienta-pancakes.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-plutonian-fire.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-poet-and-the-peasant.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-power-of-reputation.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-pride-of-the-cities.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-princess-and-the-puma.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-prisoner-of-zembla-by-anthony-hoke.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-prisoner-of-zembla.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-proem.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-purple-dress.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-rake-off.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-ransom-of-mack.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-ransom-of-red-chief.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-rathskeller-and-the-rose.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-red-roses-of-tonia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-reformation-of-calliope.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-remnants-of-the-code.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-renaissance-at-charleroi.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-roads-we-take.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-robe-of-peace.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-romance-of-a-busy-broker.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-rose-of-dixie.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-rubaiyat-of-a-scotch-highball.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-rubber-plants-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sensitive-colonel-jay.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-shamrock-and-the-palm.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-shock.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-shocks-of-doom.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-skylight-room.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sleuths.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-snow-man.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-social-triangle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-song-and-the-sergeant.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sparrows-in-madison-square.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sphinx-apple.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sporting-editor-on-culture.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-strangers-appeal.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sunday-excursionist.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-tale-of-a-tainted-tenner.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-telegram.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-theory-and-the-hound.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-things-the-play.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-third-ingredient.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-trimmed-lamp.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-unknown-quantity.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-unprofitable-servant.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-venturers.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-vitagraphoscope.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-voice-of-the-city.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-whirligig-of-life.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-winner.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-world-and-the-door.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-wounded-veteran.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="thimble-thimble.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="to-him-who-waits.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="tobins-palm.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="tommys-burglar.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="too-late.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="too-wise.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="tracked-to-doom.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="transformation-of-martin-burney.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="transients-in-arcadia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="two-recalls.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="two-renegades.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="two-thanksgiving-day-gentlemen.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="ulysses-and-the-dogman.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="vanity-and-some-sables.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="what-it-was.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-rose-of-dixie.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-third-ingredient.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-hiding-of-black-bill.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="schools-and-schools.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="thimble-thimble.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="supply-and-demand.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="buried-treasure.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="to-him-who-waits.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="he-also-serves.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-moment-of-victory.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-head-hunter.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="no-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-higher-pragmatism.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="best-seller.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="rus-in-urbe.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-poor-rule.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-fog-in-santone.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="blind-mans-holiday.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="strictly-business.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-gold-that-glittered.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="babes-in-the-jungle.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-day-resurgent.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-fifth-wheel.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-poet-and-the-peasant.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-girl-and-the-graft.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-call-of-the-tame.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-unknown-quantity.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-things-the-play.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-ramble-in-aphasia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-municipal-report.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="psyche-and-the-pskyscraper.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-bird-of-bagdad.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="compliments-of-the-season.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-night-in-new-arabia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-girl-and-the-habit.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="proof-of-the-pudding.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="past-one-at-rooneys.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-venturers.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-duel.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="what-you-want.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="while-the-auto-waits.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="whistling-dicks-christmas-stocking.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="why-conductors-are-morose.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="why-he-hesitated.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="willing-to-compromise.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-world-and-the-door.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-theory-and-the-hound.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="calloways-code.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-matter-of-mean-elevation.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="girl.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="sociology-in-serge-and-straw.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-ransom-of-red-chief.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-marry-month-of-may.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-technical-error.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="suite-homes-and-their-romance.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-sacrifice-hit.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-roads-we-take.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-song-and-the-sergeant.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="tommys-burglar.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-last-of-the-troubadours.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sleuths.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="witches-loaves.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-pride-of-the-cities.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="holding-up-a-train.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="ulysses-and-the-dogman.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-champion-of-the-weather.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="makes-the-whole-world-kin.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-door-of-unrest.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="let-me-feel-your-pulse.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-church-with-an-overshot-wheel.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="new-york-by-camp-fire-light.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-adventures-of-shamrock-jolnes.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-lady-higher-up.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-greater-coney.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="law-and-order.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-caliph-and-the-cad.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-diamond-of-kali.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-day-we-celebrate.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-friendly-call.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="an-unfinished-christmas-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-unprofitable-servant.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-dream.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-red-roses-of-tonia.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-rubber-plants-story.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-sparrows-in-madison-square.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-detective-detector.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-dog-and-the-playlet.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="a-little-talk-about-mobs.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="the-snow-man.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="endnotes.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="colophon.xhtml"/>
|
||||
<itemref idref="uncopyright.xhtml"/>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,20 +11,30 @@
|
||||
<p>The most popular and recent advertising dodge in literature is the Grand Guess Contest Mystery Story. Everybody is invited to guess how the story will end, at any time before the last chapter is published, and incidentally to buy a paper or subscribe. It is the easiest thing in the world to write a story of mystery that will defy the most ingenious guessers in the country.</p>
|
||||
<p>To prove it, here is one that we offer $10,000 to any man and $15,000 to any woman who guesses the mystery before the last chapter.</p>
|
||||
<p>The synopsis of the story is alone given, as literary style is not our object—we want mystery.</p>
|
||||
<h3>Chapter I</h3>
|
||||
<p>Judge Smith, a highly esteemed citizen of Plunkville, is found murdered in his bed at his home. He has been stabbed with a pair of scissors, poisoned with “rough on rats.” His throat has been cut with an ivory handled razor, an artery in his arm has been opened, and he has been shot full of buckshot from a doublebarreled gun.</p>
|
||||
<p>The coroner is summoned and the room examined. On the ceiling is a bloody footprint, and on the floor are found a lady’s lace handkerchief, embroidered with the initials “<abbr class="name">J. B.</abbr>,” a package of cigarettes and a ham sandwich. The coroner renders a verdict of suicide.</p>
|
||||
<h3>Chapter <span epub:type="z3998:roman">II</span> </h3>
|
||||
<p>The judge leaves a daughter, Mabel, aged eighteen, and ravishingly lovely. The night before the murder she exhibited a revolver and an axe in the principal saloon in town and declared her intention of “doing up” the old man. The judge has his life insured for $100,000 in her favor. Nobody suspects her of the crime.</p>
|
||||
<p>Mabel is engaged to a young man named Charlie, who is seen on the night of the murder by several citizens climbing out the judge’s window with a bloody razor and a shotgun in his hand. Society gives Charlie the cold shoulder.</p>
|
||||
<p>A tramp is run over by a street car and before dying confesses to having committed the murder, and at the judge’s funeral his brother, Colonel Smith, breaks down and acknowledges having killed the judge in order to get his watch. Mabel sends to Chicago and employs a skilled detective to work up the case.</p>
|
||||
<h3>Chapter <span epub:type="z3998:roman">III</span> </h3>
|
||||
<p>A beautiful strange lady dressed in mourning comes to Plunkville and registers at the hotel as Jane Bumgartner. (The initials on the handkerchief!)</p>
|
||||
<p>The next day a Chinaman is found who denies having killed the judge, and is arrested by the detective. The strange lady meets Charlie on the street, and, on smelling the smoke from his cigarette, faints. Mabel discards him and engages herself to the Chinaman.</p>
|
||||
<h3>Chapter <span epub:type="z3998:roman">IV</span> </h3>
|
||||
<p>While the Chinaman is being tried for murder, Jane Bumgartner testifies that she saw the detective murder Judge Smith at the instance of the minister who conducted the funeral, and that Mabel is Charlie’s stepmother. The Chinaman is about to confess when footsteps are heard approaching. The next chapter will be the last, and it is safe to say that no one will find it easy to guess the ending of the story. To show how difficult this feat is, the last chapter is now given.</p>
|
||||
<h3>Chapter <span epub:type="z3998:roman">V</span> </h3>
|
||||
<p>The footsteps prove to be those of Thomas R. Hefflebomer of Washington Territory, who introduces positive proof of having murdered the judge during a fit of mental aberration, and Mabel marries a man named Tompkins, whom she met two years later at Hot Springs.</p>
|
||||
<section id="a-guess-proof-mystery-story-1" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Chapter <span epub:type="z3998:roman">I</span></h3>
|
||||
<p>Judge Smith, a highly esteemed citizen of Plunkville, is found murdered in his bed at his home. He has been stabbed with a pair of scissors, poisoned with “rough on rats.” His throat has been cut with an ivory handled razor, an artery in his arm has been opened, and he has been shot full of buckshot from a doublebarreled gun.</p>
|
||||
<p>The coroner is summoned and the room examined. On the ceiling is a bloody footprint, and on the floor are found a lady’s lace handkerchief, embroidered with the initials “<abbr class="name">J. B.</abbr>,” a package of cigarettes and a ham sandwich. The coroner renders a verdict of suicide.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="a-guess-proof-mystery-story-2" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Chapter <span epub:type="z3998:roman">II</span></h3>
|
||||
<p>The judge leaves a daughter, Mabel, aged eighteen, and ravishingly lovely. The night before the murder she exhibited a revolver and an axe in the principal saloon in town and declared her intention of “doing up” the old man. The judge has his life insured for $100,000 in her favor. Nobody suspects her of the crime.</p>
|
||||
<p>Mabel is engaged to a young man named Charlie, who is seen on the night of the murder by several citizens climbing out the judge’s window with a bloody razor and a shotgun in his hand. Society gives Charlie the cold shoulder.</p>
|
||||
<p>A tramp is run over by a street car and before dying confesses to having committed the murder, and at the judge’s funeral his brother, Colonel Smith, breaks down and acknowledges having killed the judge in order to get his watch. Mabel sends to Chicago and employs a skilled detective to work up the case.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="a-guess-proof-mystery-story-3" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Chapter <span epub:type="z3998:roman">III</span></h3>
|
||||
<p>A beautiful strange lady dressed in mourning comes to Plunkville and registers at the hotel as Jane Bumgartner. (The initials on the handkerchief!)</p>
|
||||
<p>The next day a Chinaman is found who denies having killed the judge, and is arrested by the detective. The strange lady meets Charlie on the street, and, on smelling the smoke from his cigarette, faints. Mabel discards him and engages herself to the Chinaman.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="a-guess-proof-mystery-story-4" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Chapter <span epub:type="z3998:roman">IV</span></h3>
|
||||
<p>While the Chinaman is being tried for murder, Jane Bumgartner testifies that she saw the detective murder Judge Smith at the instance of the minister who conducted the funeral, and that Mabel is Charlie’s stepmother. The Chinaman is about to confess when footsteps are heard approaching. The next chapter will be the last, and it is safe to say that no one will find it easy to guess the ending of the story. To show how difficult this feat is, the last chapter is now given.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="a-guess-proof-mystery-story-5" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Chapter <span epub:type="z3998:roman">V</span></h3>
|
||||
<p>The footsteps prove to be those of Thomas R. Hefflebomer of Washington Territory, who introduces positive proof of having murdered the judge during a fit of mental aberration, and Mabel marries a man named Tompkins, whom she met two years later at Hot Springs.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
|
||||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="an-adjustment-of-nature" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">An ADJUSTMENT OF NATURE</h2>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">An Adjustment of Nature</h2>
|
||||
<p>In an art exhibition the other day I saw a painting that had been sold for $5,000. The painter was a young scrub out of the West named Kraft, who had a favourite food and a pet theory. His pabulum was an unquenchable belief in the Unerring Artistic Adjustment of Nature. His theory was fixed around corned-beef hash with poached egg. There was a story behind the picture, so I went home and let it drip out of a fountain-pen. The idea of Kraft—but that is not the beginning of the story.</p>
|
||||
<p>Three years ago Kraft, Bill Judkins (a poet), and I took our meals at Cypher’s, on Eighth Avenue. I say “took.” When we had money, Cypher got it “off of” us, as he expressed it. We had no credit; we went in, called for food and ate it. We paid or we did not pay. We had confidence in Cypher’s sullenness and smouldering ferocity. Deep down in his sunless soul he was either a prince, a fool or an artist. He sat at a worm-eaten desk, covered with files of waiters’ checks so old that I was sure the bottomest one was for clams that Hendrik Hudson had eaten and paid for. Cypher had the power, in common with Napoleon <span epub:type="z3998:roman">III</span> and the goggle-eyed perch, of throwing a film over his eyes, rendering opaque the windows of his soul. Once when we left him unpaid, with egregious excuses, I looked back and saw him shaking with inaudible laughter behind his film. Now and then we paid up back scores.</p>
|
||||
<p>But the chief thing at Cypher’s was Milly. Milly was a waitress. She was a grand example of Kraft’s theory of the artistic adjustment of nature. She belonged, largely, to waiting, as Minerva did to the art of scrapping, or Venus to the science of serious flirtation. Pedestalled and in bronze she might have stood with the noblest of her heroic sisters as “Liver-and-Bacon Enlivening the World.” She belonged to Cypher’s. You expected to see her colossal figure loom through that reeking blue cloud of smoke from frying fat just as you expect the Palisades to appear through a drifting Hudson River fog. There amid the steam of vegetables and the vapours of acres of “ham and,” the crash of crockery, the clatter of steel, the screaming of “short orders,” the cries of the hungering and all the horrid tumult of feeding man, surrounded by swarms of the buzzing winged beasts bequeathed us by Pharaoh, Milly steered her magnificent way like some great liner cleaving among the canoes of howling savages.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,108 +8,116 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="best-seller" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Best-Seller</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">I</h3>
|
||||
<p>One day last summer I went to Pittsburgh—well, I had to go there on business.</p>
|
||||
<p>My chair-car was profitably well filled with people of the kind one usually sees on chair-cars. Most of them were ladies in brown-silk dresses cut with square yokes, with lace insertion, and dotted veils, who refused to have the windows raised. Then there was the usual number of men who looked as if they might be in almost any business and going almost anywhere. Some students of human nature can look at a man in a Pullman and tell you where he is from, his occupation and his stations in life, both flag and social; but I never could. The only way I can correctly judge a fellow-traveller is when the train is held up by robbers, or when he reaches at the same time I do for the last towel in the dressing-room of the sleeper.</p>
|
||||
<p>The porter came and brushed the collection of soot on the window-sill off to the left knee of my trousers. I removed it with an air of apology. The temperature was eighty-eight. One of the dotted-veiled ladies demanded the closing of two more ventilators, and spoke loudly of Interlaken. I leaned back idly in chair <abbr>No.</abbr> 7, and looked with the tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head just visible above the back of <abbr>No.</abbr> 9.</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly <abbr>No.</abbr> 9 hurled a book to the floor between his chair and the window, and, looking, I saw that it was “The Rose-Lady and Trevelyan,” one of the best-selling novels of the present day. And then the critic or Philistine, whichever he was, veered his chair toward the window, and I knew him at once for John A. Pescud, of Pittsburgh, travelling salesman for a plate-glass company—an old acquaintance whom I had not seen in two years.</p>
|
||||
<p>In two minutes we were faced, had shaken hands, and had finished with such topics as rain, prosperity, health, residence, and destination. Politics might have followed next; but I was not so ill-fated.</p>
|
||||
<p>I wish you might know John A. Pescud. He is of the stuff that heroes are not often lucky enough to be made of. He is a small man with a wide smile, and an eye that seems to be fixed upon that little red spot on the end of your nose. I never saw him wear but one kind of necktie, and he believes in cuff-holders and button-shoes. He is as hard and true as anything ever turned out by the Cambria Steel Works; and he believes that as soon as Pittsburgh makes smoke-consumers compulsory, <abbr>St.</abbr> Peter will come down and sit at the foot of Smithfield Street, and let somebody else attend to the gate up in the branch heaven. He believes that “our” plate-glass is the most important commodity in the world, and that when a man is in his home town he ought to be decent and law-abiding.</p>
|
||||
<p>During my acquaintance with him in the City of Diurnal Night I had never known his views on life, romance, literature, and ethics. We had browsed, during our meetings, on local topics, and then parted, after Chateau Margaux, Irish stew, flannel-cakes, cottage-pudding, and coffee (hey, there!—with milk separate). Now I was to get more of his ideas. By way of facts, he told me that business had picked up since the party conventions, and that he was going to get off at Coketown.</p>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">II</h3>
|
||||
<p>“Say,” said Pescud, stirring his discarded book with the toe of his right shoe, “did you ever read one of these best-sellers? I mean the kind where the hero is an American swell—sometimes even from Chicago—who falls in love with a royal princess from Europe who is travelling under an alias, and follows her to her father’s kingdom or principality? I guess you have. They’re all alike. Sometimes this going-away masher is a Washington newspaper correspondent, and sometimes he is a Van Something from New York, or a Chicago wheat-broker worthy fifty millions. But he’s always ready to break into the king row of any foreign country that sends over their queens and princesses to try the new plush seats on the Big Four or the B. and O. There doesn’t seem to be any other reason in the book for their being here.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, this fellow chases the royal chair-warmer home, as I said, and finds out who she is. He meets her on the <i xml:lang="de">corso</i> or the <i xml:lang="de">strasse</i> one evening and gives us ten pages of conversation. She reminds him of the difference in their stations, and that gives him a chance to ring in three solid pages about America’s uncrowned sovereigns. If you’d take his remarks and set ’em to music, and then take the music away from ’em, they’d sound exactly like one of George Cohan’s songs.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, you know how it runs on, if you’ve read any of ’em—he slaps the king’s Swiss body-guards around like everything whenever they get in his way. He’s a great fencer, too. Now, I’ve known of some Chicago men who were pretty notorious fences, but I never heard of any fencers coming from there. He stands on the first landing of the royal staircase in Castle Schutzenfestenstein with a gleaming rapier in his hand, and makes a Baltimore broil of six platoons of traitors who come to massacre the said king. And then he has to fight duels with a couple of chancellors, and foil a plot by four Austrian archdukes to seize the kingdom for a gasoline-station.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But the great scene is when his rival for the princess’ hand, Count Feodor, attacks him between the portcullis and the ruined chapel, armed with a mitrailleuse, a yataghan, and a couple of Siberian bloodhounds. This scene is what runs the best-seller into the twenty-ninth edition before the publisher has had time to draw a check for the advance royalties.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The American hero shucks his coat and throws it over the heads of the bloodhounds, gives the mitrailleuse a slap with his mitt, says ‘Yah!’ to the yataghan, and lands in Kid McCoy’s best style on the count’s left eye. Of course, we have a neat little prize-fight right then and there. The count—in order to make the go possible—seems to be an expert at the art of self-defence, himself; and here we have the Corbett-Sullivan fight done over into literature. The book ends with the broker and the princess doing a John Cecil Clay cover under the linden-trees on the Gorgonzola Walk. That winds up the love-story plenty good enough. But I notice that the book dodges the final issue. Even a best-seller has sense enough to shy at either leaving a Chicago grain broker on the throne of Lobsterpotsdam or bringing over a real princess to eat fish and potato salad in an Italian chalet on Michigan Avenue. What do you think about ’em?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why,” said I, “I hardly know, John. There’s a saying: ‘Love levels all ranks,’ you know.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” said Pescud, “but these kind of love-stories are rank—on the level. I know something about literature, even if I am in plate-glass. These kind of books are wrong, and yet I never go into a train but what they pile ’em up on me. No good can come out of an international clinch between the Old-World aristocracy and one of us fresh Americans. When people in real life marry, they generally hunt up somebody in their own station. A fellow usually picks out a girl that went to the same high-school and belonged to the same singing-society that he did. When young millionaires fall in love, they always select the chorus-girl that likes the same kind of sauce on the lobster that he does. Washington newspaper correspondents always many widow ladies ten years older than themselves who keep boarding-houses. No, sir, you can’t make a novel sound right to me when it makes one of C. D. Gibson’s bright young men go abroad and turn kingdoms upside down just because he’s a Taft American and took a course at a gymnasium. And listen how they talk, too!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Pescud picked up the best-seller and hunted his page.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Listen at this,” said he. “Trevelyan is chinning with the Princess Alwyna at the back end of the tulip-garden. This is how it goes:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Say not so, dearest and sweetest of earth’s fairest flowers. Would I aspire? You are a star set high above me in a royal heaven; I am only—myself. Yet I am a man, and I have a heart to do and dare. I have no title save that of an uncrowned sovereign; but I have an arm and a sword that yet might free Schutzenfestenstein from the plots of traitors.’</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“Think of a Chicago man packing a sword, and talking about freeing anything that sounded as much like canned pork as that! He’d be much more likely to fight to have an import duty put on it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I think I understand you, John,” said I. “You want fiction-writers to be consistent with their scenes and characters. They shouldn’t mix Turkish pashas with Vermont farmers, or English dukes with Long Island clam-diggers, or Italian countesses with Montana cowboys, or Cincinnati brewery agents with the rajahs of India.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Or plain business men with aristocracy high above ’em,” added Pescud. “It don’t jibe. People are divided into classes, whether we admit it or not, and it’s everybody’s impulse to stick to their own class. They do it, too. I don’t see why people go to work and buy hundreds of thousands of books like that. You don’t see or hear of any such didoes and capers in real life.”</p>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">III</h3>
|
||||
<p>“Well, John,” said I, “I haven’t read a best-seller in a long time. Maybe I’ve had notions about them somewhat like yours. But tell me more about yourself. Getting along all right with the company?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bully,” said Pescud, brightening at once. “I’ve had my salary raised twice since I saw you, and I get a commission, too. I’ve bought a neat slice of real estate out in the East End, and have run up a house on it. Next year the firm is going to sell me some shares of stock. Oh, I’m in on the line of General Prosperity, no matter who’s elected!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Met your affinity yet, John?” I asked.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, I didn’t tell you about that, did I?” said Pescud with a broader grin.</p>
|
||||
<p>“O-ho!” I said. “So you’ve taken time enough off from your plate-glass to have a romance?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, no,” said John. “No romance—nothing like that! But I’ll tell you about it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was on the south-bound, going to Cincinnati, about eighteen months ago, when I saw, across the aisle, the finest-looking girl I’d ever laid eyes on. Nothing spectacular, you know, but just the sort you want for keeps. Well, I never was up to the flirtation business, either handkerchief, automobile, postage-stamp, or door-step, and she wasn’t the kind to start anything. She read a book and minded her business, which was to make the world prettier and better just by residing on it. I kept on looking out of the side doors of my eyes, and finally the proposition got out of the Pullman class into a case of a cottage with a lawn and vines running over the porch. I never thought of speaking to her, but I let the plate-glass business go to smash for a while.</p>
|
||||
<p>“She changed cars at Cincinnati, and took a sleeper to Louisville over the L. and N. There she bought another ticket, and went on through Shelbyville, Frankfort, and Lexington. Along there I began to have a hard time keeping up with her. The trains came along when they pleased, and didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular, except to keep on the track and the right of way as much as possible. Then they began to stop at junctions instead of towns, and at last they stopped altogether. I’ll bet Pinkerton would outbid the plate-glass people for my services any time if they knew how I managed to shadow that young lady. I contrived to keep out of her sight as much as I could, but I never lost track of her.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The last station she got off at was away down in Virginia, about six in the afternoon. There were about fifty houses and four hundred niggers in sight. The rest was red mud, mules, and speckled hounds.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A tall old man, with a smooth face and white hair, looking as proud as Julius Cæsar and Roscoe Conkling on the same post-card, was there to meet her. His clothes were frazzled, but I didn’t notice that till later. He took her little satchel, and they started over the plank-walks and went up a road along the hill. I kept along a piece behind ’em, trying to look like I was hunting a garnet ring in the sand that my sister had lost at a picnic the previous Saturday.</p>
|
||||
<p>“They went in a gate on top of the hill. It nearly took my breath away when I looked up. Up there in the biggest grove I ever saw was a tremendous house with round white pillars about a thousand feet high, and the yard was so full of rose-bushes and box-bushes and lilacs that you couldn’t have seen the house if it hadn’t been as big as the Capitol at Washington.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Here’s where I have to trail,’ says I to myself. I thought before that she seemed to be in moderate circumstances, at least. This must be the Governor’s mansion, or the Agricultural Building of a new World’s Fair, anyhow. I’d better go back to the village and get posted by the postmaster, or drug the druggist for some information.</p>
|
||||
<p>“In the village I found a pine hotel called the Bay View House. The only excuse for the name was a bay horse grazing in the front yard. I set my sample-case down, and tried to be ostensible. I told the landlord I was taking orders for plate-glass.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I don’t want no plates,’ says he, ‘but I do need another glass molasses-pitcher.’</p>
|
||||
<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>“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>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You are quite a distance from home,’ says she.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’d have gone a thousand miles farther,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<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 any one talk like this to me before, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pescud,’ says she. ‘What did you say your name is—John?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘John A.,’ 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>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Men are very clumsy,’ said she. ‘I knew you were on every train. I thought you were going to speak to me, and I’m glad you didn’t.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then we had more talk; and at last a kind of proud, serious look came on her face, and she turned and pointed a finger at the big house.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘The Allyns,’ says she, ‘have lived in Elmcroft for a hundred years. We are a proud family. Look at that mansion. It has fifty rooms. See the pillars and porches and balconies. The ceilings in the reception-rooms and the ball-room are twenty-eight feet high. My father is a lineal descendant of belted earls.’</p>
|
||||
<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 good-bye, <abbr>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>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘John,’ says she.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘John—what?’ I says.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘John A.,’ says she, with her head high. ‘Are you through, now?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’m coming to see the belted earl to-morrow,’ I says.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘He’ll feed you to his fox-hounds,’ says she, laughing.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘If he does, it’ll improve their running,’ says I. ‘I’m something of a hunter myself.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I must be going in now,’ says she. ‘I oughtn’t to have spoken to you at all. I hope you’ll have a pleasant trip back to Minneapolis—or Pittsburgh, was it? Good-bye!’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Good-night,’ says I, ‘and it wasn’t Minneapolis. What’s your name, first, please?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“She hesitated. Then she pulled a leaf off a bush, and said:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘My name is Jessie,’ says she.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Good-night, Miss Allyn,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The next morning at eleven, sharp, I rang the door-bell of that World’s Fair main building. After about three-quarters of an hour an old nigger man about eighty showed up and asked what I wanted. I gave him my business card, and said I wanted to see the colonel. He showed me in.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say, did you ever crack open a wormy English walnut? That’s what that house was like. There wasn’t enough furniture in it to fill an eight-dollar flat. Some old horsehair lounges and three-legged chairs and some framed ancestors on the walls were all that met the eye. But when Colonel Allyn comes in, the place seemed to light up. You could almost hear a band playing, and see a bunch of old-timers in wigs and white stockings dancing a quadrille. It was the style of him, although he had on the same shabby clothes I saw him wear at the station.</p>
|
||||
<p>“For about nine seconds he had me rattled, and I came mighty near getting cold feet and trying to sell him some plate-glass. But I got my nerve back pretty quick. He asked me to sit down, and I told him everything. I told him how I followed his daughter from Cincinnati, and what I did it for, and all about my salary and prospects, and explained to him my little code of living—to be always decent and right in your home town; and when you’re on the road, never take more than four glasses of beer a day or play higher than a twenty-five-cent limit. At first I thought he was going to throw me out of the window, but I kept on talking. Pretty soon I got a chance to tell him that story about the Western Congressman who had lost his pocket-book and the grass widow—you remember that story. Well, that got him to laughing, and I’ll bet that was the first laugh those ancestors and horsehair sofas had heard in many a day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We talked two hours. I told him everything I knew; and then he began to ask questions, and I told him the rest. All I asked of him was to give me a chance. If I couldn’t make a hit with the little lady, I’d clear out, and not bother any more. At last he says:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘There was a Sir Courtenay Pescud in the time of Charles I, if I remember rightly.’</p>
|
||||
<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 fox-hunting 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>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘He’s coming,’ says she. ‘He’s going to tell you, this time, the story about the old negro and the green watermelons. It always comes after the one about the Yankees and the game rooster. There was another time,’ she goes on, ‘that you nearly got left—it was at Pulaski City.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘I remember. My foot slipped as I was jumping on the step, and I nearly tumbled off.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I know,’ says she. ‘And—and I—<em>I was afraid you had, John A. I was afraid you had.</em>’</p>
|
||||
<p>“And then she skips into the house through one of the big windows.”</p>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">IV</h3>
|
||||
<p>“Coketown!” droned the porter, making his way through the slowing car.</p>
|
||||
<p>Pescud gathered his hat and baggage with the leisurely promptness of an old traveller.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I married her a year ago,” said John. “I told you I built a house in the East End. The belted—I mean the colonel—is there, too. I find him waiting at the gate whenever I get back from a trip to hear any new story I might have picked up on the road.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I glanced out of the window. Coketown was nothing more than a ragged hillside dotted with a score of black dismal huts propped up against dreary mounds of slag and clinkers. It rained in slanting torrents, too, and the rills foamed and splashed down through the black mud to the railroad-tracks.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You won’t sell much plate-glass here, John,” said I. “Why do you get off at this end-o’-the-world?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why,” said Pescud, “the other day I took Jessie for a little trip to Philadelphia, and coming back she thought she saw some petunias in a pot in one of those windows over there just like some she used to raise down in the old Virginia home. So I thought I’d drop off here for the night, and see if I could dig up some of the cuttings or blossoms for her. Here we are. Good-night, old man. I gave you the address. Come out and see us when you have time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The train moved forward. One of the dotted brown ladies insisted on having windows raised, now that the rain beat against them. The porter came along with his mysterious wand and began to light the car.</p>
|
||||
<p>I glanced downward and saw the best-seller. I picked it up and set it carefully farther along on the floor of the car, where the rain-drops would not fall upon it. And then, suddenly, I smiled, and seemed to see that life has no geographical metes and bounds.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Good-luck to you, Trevelyan,” I said. “And may you get the petunias for your princess!”</p>
|
||||
<section id="best-seller-1" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">I</h3>
|
||||
<p>One day last summer I went to Pittsburgh—well, I had to go there on business.</p>
|
||||
<p>My chair-car was profitably well filled with people of the kind one usually sees on chair-cars. Most of them were ladies in brown-silk dresses cut with square yokes, with lace insertion, and dotted veils, who refused to have the windows raised. Then there was the usual number of men who looked as if they might be in almost any business and going almost anywhere. Some students of human nature can look at a man in a Pullman and tell you where he is from, his occupation and his stations in life, both flag and social; but I never could. The only way I can correctly judge a fellow-traveller is when the train is held up by robbers, or when he reaches at the same time I do for the last towel in the dressing-room of the sleeper.</p>
|
||||
<p>The porter came and brushed the collection of soot on the window-sill off to the left knee of my trousers. I removed it with an air of apology. The temperature was eighty-eight. One of the dotted-veiled ladies demanded the closing of two more ventilators, and spoke loudly of Interlaken. I leaned back idly in chair <abbr>No.</abbr> 7, and looked with the tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head just visible above the back of <abbr>No.</abbr> 9.</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly <abbr>No.</abbr> 9 hurled a book to the floor between his chair and the window, and, looking, I saw that it was “The Rose-Lady and Trevelyan,” one of the best-selling novels of the present day. And then the critic or Philistine, whichever he was, veered his chair toward the window, and I knew him at once for John A. Pescud, of Pittsburgh, travelling salesman for a plate-glass company—an old acquaintance whom I had not seen in two years.</p>
|
||||
<p>In two minutes we were faced, had shaken hands, and had finished with such topics as rain, prosperity, health, residence, and destination. Politics might have followed next; but I was not so ill-fated.</p>
|
||||
<p>I wish you might know John A. Pescud. He is of the stuff that heroes are not often lucky enough to be made of. He is a small man with a wide smile, and an eye that seems to be fixed upon that little red spot on the end of your nose. I never saw him wear but one kind of necktie, and he believes in cuff-holders and button-shoes. He is as hard and true as anything ever turned out by the Cambria Steel Works; and he believes that as soon as Pittsburgh makes smoke-consumers compulsory, <abbr>St.</abbr> Peter will come down and sit at the foot of Smithfield Street, and let somebody else attend to the gate up in the branch heaven. He believes that “our” plate-glass is the most important commodity in the world, and that when a man is in his home town he ought to be decent and law-abiding.</p>
|
||||
<p>During my acquaintance with him in the City of Diurnal Night I had never known his views on life, romance, literature, and ethics. We had browsed, during our meetings, on local topics, and then parted, after Chateau Margaux, Irish stew, flannel-cakes, cottage-pudding, and coffee (hey, there!—with milk separate). Now I was to get more of his ideas. By way of facts, he told me that business had picked up since the party conventions, and that he was going to get off at Coketown.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="best-seller-2" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">II</h3>
|
||||
<p>“Say,” said Pescud, stirring his discarded book with the toe of his right shoe, “did you ever read one of these best-sellers? I mean the kind where the hero is an American swell—sometimes even from Chicago—who falls in love with a royal princess from Europe who is travelling under an alias, and follows her to her father’s kingdom or principality? I guess you have. They’re all alike. Sometimes this going-away masher is a Washington newspaper correspondent, and sometimes he is a Van Something from New York, or a Chicago wheat-broker worthy fifty millions. But he’s always ready to break into the king row of any foreign country that sends over their queens and princesses to try the new plush seats on the Big Four or the B. and O. There doesn’t seem to be any other reason in the book for their being here.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, this fellow chases the royal chair-warmer home, as I said, and finds out who she is. He meets her on the <i xml:lang="de">corso</i> or the <i xml:lang="de">strasse</i> one evening and gives us ten pages of conversation. She reminds him of the difference in their stations, and that gives him a chance to ring in three solid pages about America’s uncrowned sovereigns. If you’d take his remarks and set ’em to music, and then take the music away from ’em, they’d sound exactly like one of George Cohan’s songs.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, you know how it runs on, if you’ve read any of ’em—he slaps the king’s Swiss body-guards around like everything whenever they get in his way. He’s a great fencer, too. Now, I’ve known of some Chicago men who were pretty notorious fences, but I never heard of any fencers coming from there. He stands on the first landing of the royal staircase in Castle Schutzenfestenstein with a gleaming rapier in his hand, and makes a Baltimore broil of six platoons of traitors who come to massacre the said king. And then he has to fight duels with a couple of chancellors, and foil a plot by four Austrian archdukes to seize the kingdom for a gasoline-station.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But the great scene is when his rival for the princess’ hand, Count Feodor, attacks him between the portcullis and the ruined chapel, armed with a mitrailleuse, a yataghan, and a couple of Siberian bloodhounds. This scene is what runs the best-seller into the twenty-ninth edition before the publisher has had time to draw a check for the advance royalties.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The American hero shucks his coat and throws it over the heads of the bloodhounds, gives the mitrailleuse a slap with his mitt, says ‘Yah!’ to the yataghan, and lands in Kid McCoy’s best style on the count’s left eye. Of course, we have a neat little prize-fight right then and there. The count—in order to make the go possible—seems to be an expert at the art of self-defence, himself; and here we have the Corbett-Sullivan fight done over into literature. The book ends with the broker and the princess doing a John Cecil Clay cover under the linden-trees on the Gorgonzola Walk. That winds up the love-story plenty good enough. But I notice that the book dodges the final issue. Even a best-seller has sense enough to shy at either leaving a Chicago grain broker on the throne of Lobsterpotsdam or bringing over a real princess to eat fish and potato salad in an Italian chalet on Michigan Avenue. What do you think about ’em?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why,” said I, “I hardly know, John. There’s a saying: ‘Love levels all ranks,’ you know.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” said Pescud, “but these kind of love-stories are rank—on the level. I know something about literature, even if I am in plate-glass. These kind of books are wrong, and yet I never go into a train but what they pile ’em up on me. No good can come out of an international clinch between the Old-World aristocracy and one of us fresh Americans. When people in real life marry, they generally hunt up somebody in their own station. A fellow usually picks out a girl that went to the same high-school and belonged to the same singing-society that he did. When young millionaires fall in love, they always select the chorus-girl that likes the same kind of sauce on the lobster that he does. Washington newspaper correspondents always many widow ladies ten years older than themselves who keep boarding-houses. No, sir, you can’t make a novel sound right to me when it makes one of C. D. Gibson’s bright young men go abroad and turn kingdoms upside down just because he’s a Taft American and took a course at a gymnasium. And listen how they talk, too!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Pescud picked up the best-seller and hunted his page.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Listen at this,” said he. “Trevelyan is chinning with the Princess Alwyna at the back end of the tulip-garden. This is how it goes:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Say not so, dearest and sweetest of earth’s fairest flowers. Would I aspire? You are a star set high above me in a royal heaven; I am only—myself. Yet I am a man, and I have a heart to do and dare. I have no title save that of an uncrowned sovereign; but I have an arm and a sword that yet might free Schutzenfestenstein from the plots of traitors.’</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“Think of a Chicago man packing a sword, and talking about freeing anything that sounded as much like canned pork as that! He’d be much more likely to fight to have an import duty put on it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I think I understand you, John,” said I. “You want fiction-writers to be consistent with their scenes and characters. They shouldn’t mix Turkish pashas with Vermont farmers, or English dukes with Long Island clam-diggers, or Italian countesses with Montana cowboys, or Cincinnati brewery agents with the rajahs of India.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Or plain business men with aristocracy high above ’em,” added Pescud. “It don’t jibe. People are divided into classes, whether we admit it or not, and it’s everybody’s impulse to stick to their own class. They do it, too. I don’t see why people go to work and buy hundreds of thousands of books like that. You don’t see or hear of any such didoes and capers in real life.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="best-seller-3" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">III</h3>
|
||||
<p>“Well, John,” said I, “I haven’t read a best-seller in a long time. Maybe I’ve had notions about them somewhat like yours. But tell me more about yourself. Getting along all right with the company?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bully,” said Pescud, brightening at once. “I’ve had my salary raised twice since I saw you, and I get a commission, too. I’ve bought a neat slice of real estate out in the East End, and have run up a house on it. Next year the firm is going to sell me some shares of stock. Oh, I’m in on the line of General Prosperity, no matter who’s elected!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Met your affinity yet, John?” I asked.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, I didn’t tell you about that, did I?” said Pescud with a broader grin.</p>
|
||||
<p>“O-ho!” I said. “So you’ve taken time enough off from your plate-glass to have a romance?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, no,” said John. “No romance—nothing like that! But I’ll tell you about it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was on the south-bound, going to Cincinnati, about eighteen months ago, when I saw, across the aisle, the finest-looking girl I’d ever laid eyes on. Nothing spectacular, you know, but just the sort you want for keeps. Well, I never was up to the flirtation business, either handkerchief, automobile, postage-stamp, or door-step, and she wasn’t the kind to start anything. She read a book and minded her business, which was to make the world prettier and better just by residing on it. I kept on looking out of the side doors of my eyes, and finally the proposition got out of the Pullman class into a case of a cottage with a lawn and vines running over the porch. I never thought of speaking to her, but I let the plate-glass business go to smash for a while.</p>
|
||||
<p>“She changed cars at Cincinnati, and took a sleeper to Louisville over the L. and N. There she bought another ticket, and went on through Shelbyville, Frankfort, and Lexington. Along there I began to have a hard time keeping up with her. The trains came along when they pleased, and didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular, except to keep on the track and the right of way as much as possible. Then they began to stop at junctions instead of towns, and at last they stopped altogether. I’ll bet Pinkerton would outbid the plate-glass people for my services any time if they knew how I managed to shadow that young lady. I contrived to keep out of her sight as much as I could, but I never lost track of her.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The last station she got off at was away down in Virginia, about six in the afternoon. There were about fifty houses and four hundred niggers in sight. The rest was red mud, mules, and speckled hounds.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A tall old man, with a smooth face and white hair, looking as proud as Julius Cæsar and Roscoe Conkling on the same post-card, was there to meet her. His clothes were frazzled, but I didn’t notice that till later. He took her little satchel, and they started over the plank-walks and went up a road along the hill. I kept along a piece behind ’em, trying to look like I was hunting a garnet ring in the sand that my sister had lost at a picnic the previous Saturday.</p>
|
||||
<p>“They went in a gate on top of the hill. It nearly took my breath away when I looked up. Up there in the biggest grove I ever saw was a tremendous house with round white pillars about a thousand feet high, and the yard was so full of rose-bushes and box-bushes and lilacs that you couldn’t have seen the house if it hadn’t been as big as the Capitol at Washington.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Here’s where I have to trail,’ says I to myself. I thought before that she seemed to be in moderate circumstances, at least. This must be the Governor’s mansion, or the Agricultural Building of a new World’s Fair, anyhow. I’d better go back to the village and get posted by the postmaster, or drug the druggist for some information.</p>
|
||||
<p>“In the village I found a pine hotel called the Bay View House. The only excuse for the name was a bay horse grazing in the front yard. I set my sample-case down, and tried to be ostensible. I told the landlord I was taking orders for plate-glass.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I don’t want no plates,’ says he, ‘but I do need another glass molasses-pitcher.’</p>
|
||||
<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>“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>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You are quite a distance from home,’ says she.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’d have gone a thousand miles farther,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<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 any one talk like this to me before, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pescud,’ says she. ‘What did you say your name is—John?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘John A.,’ 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>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Men are very clumsy,’ said she. ‘I knew you were on every train. I thought you were going to speak to me, and I’m glad you didn’t.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then we had more talk; and at last a kind of proud, serious look came on her face, and she turned and pointed a finger at the big house.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘The Allyns,’ says she, ‘have lived in Elmcroft for a hundred years. We are a proud family. Look at that mansion. It has fifty rooms. See the pillars and porches and balconies. The ceilings in the reception-rooms and the ball-room are twenty-eight feet high. My father is a lineal descendant of belted earls.’</p>
|
||||
<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 good-bye, <abbr>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>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘John,’ says she.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘John—what?’ I says.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘John A.,’ says she, with her head high. ‘Are you through, now?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’m coming to see the belted earl to-morrow,’ I says.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘He’ll feed you to his fox-hounds,’ says she, laughing.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘If he does, it’ll improve their running,’ says I. ‘I’m something of a hunter myself.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I must be going in now,’ says she. ‘I oughtn’t to have spoken to you at all. I hope you’ll have a pleasant trip back to Minneapolis—or Pittsburgh, was it? Good-bye!’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Good-night,’ says I, ‘and it wasn’t Minneapolis. What’s your name, first, please?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“She hesitated. Then she pulled a leaf off a bush, and said:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘My name is Jessie,’ says she.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Good-night, Miss Allyn,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The next morning at eleven, sharp, I rang the door-bell of that World’s Fair main building. After about three-quarters of an hour an old nigger man about eighty showed up and asked what I wanted. I gave him my business card, and said I wanted to see the colonel. He showed me in.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say, did you ever crack open a wormy English walnut? That’s what that house was like. There wasn’t enough furniture in it to fill an eight-dollar flat. Some old horsehair lounges and three-legged chairs and some framed ancestors on the walls were all that met the eye. But when Colonel Allyn comes in, the place seemed to light up. You could almost hear a band playing, and see a bunch of old-timers in wigs and white stockings dancing a quadrille. It was the style of him, although he had on the same shabby clothes I saw him wear at the station.</p>
|
||||
<p>“For about nine seconds he had me rattled, and I came mighty near getting cold feet and trying to sell him some plate-glass. But I got my nerve back pretty quick. He asked me to sit down, and I told him everything. I told him how I followed his daughter from Cincinnati, and what I did it for, and all about my salary and prospects, and explained to him my little code of living—to be always decent and right in your home town; and when you’re on the road, never take more than four glasses of beer a day or play higher than a twenty-five-cent limit. At first I thought he was going to throw me out of the window, but I kept on talking. Pretty soon I got a chance to tell him that story about the Western Congressman who had lost his pocket-book and the grass widow—you remember that story. Well, that got him to laughing, and I’ll bet that was the first laugh those ancestors and horsehair sofas had heard in many a day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We talked two hours. I told him everything I knew; and then he began to ask questions, and I told him the rest. All I asked of him was to give me a chance. If I couldn’t make a hit with the little lady, I’d clear out, and not bother any more. At last he says:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘There was a Sir Courtenay Pescud in the time of Charles I, if I remember rightly.’</p>
|
||||
<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 fox-hunting 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>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘He’s coming,’ says she. ‘He’s going to tell you, this time, the story about the old negro and the green watermelons. It always comes after the one about the Yankees and the game rooster. There was another time,’ she goes on, ‘that you nearly got left—it was at Pulaski City.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘I remember. My foot slipped as I was jumping on the step, and I nearly tumbled off.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I know,’ says she. ‘And—and I—<em>I was afraid you had, John A. I was afraid you had.</em>’</p>
|
||||
<p>“And then she skips into the house through one of the big windows.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="best-seller-4" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">IV</h3>
|
||||
<p>“Coketown!” droned the porter, making his way through the slowing car.</p>
|
||||
<p>Pescud gathered his hat and baggage with the leisurely promptness of an old traveller.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I married her a year ago,” said John. “I told you I built a house in the East End. The belted—I mean the colonel—is there, too. I find him waiting at the gate whenever I get back from a trip to hear any new story I might have picked up on the road.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I glanced out of the window. Coketown was nothing more than a ragged hillside dotted with a score of black dismal huts propped up against dreary mounds of slag and clinkers. It rained in slanting torrents, too, and the rills foamed and splashed down through the black mud to the railroad-tracks.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You won’t sell much plate-glass here, John,” said I. “Why do you get off at this end-o’-the-world?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why,” said Pescud, “the other day I took Jessie for a little trip to Philadelphia, and coming back she thought she saw some petunias in a pot in one of those windows over there just like some she used to raise down in the old Virginia home. So I thought I’d drop off here for the night, and see if I could dig up some of the cuttings or blossoms for her. Here we are. Good-night, old man. I gave you the address. Come out and see us when you have time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The train moved forward. One of the dotted brown ladies insisted on having windows raised, now that the rain beat against them. The porter came along with his mysterious wand and began to light the car.</p>
|
||||
<p>I glanced downward and saw the best-seller. I picked it up and set it carefully farther along on the floor of the car, where the rain-drops would not fall upon it. And then, suddenly, I smiled, and seemed to see that life has no geographical metes and bounds.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Good-luck to you, Trevelyan,” I said. “And may you get the petunias for your princess!”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
|
||||
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
|
||||
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" epub:prefix="z3998: http://www.daisy.org/z3998/2012/vocab/structure/, se: https://standardebooks.org/vocab/1.0" xml:lang="en-US">
|
||||
<head>
|
||||
<title>‘Explaining It</title>
|
||||
<title>Explaining It</title>
|
||||
<link href="../css/core.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
|
||||
<link href="../css/local.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
|
||||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="explaining-it" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">‘Explaining It</h2>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Explaining It</h2>
|
||||
<p>Member of the Texas Legislature from one of the eastern counties was at the chrysanthemum, show at Turner Hall last Thursday night, and was making himself agreeable to one of the lady managers.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You were in the House at the last session, I believe?” she inquired.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, madam,” he said, “I was in the House, but the Senate had me for about forty-five dollars when we adjourned.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -12,11 +12,11 @@
|
||||
<p>“But can thim that helps others help thimselves!”</p>
|
||||
<cite>—Mulvaney.</cite>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<section id="helping-the-other-fellow-1" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<section id="helping-the-other-fellow-1" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<p>This is the story that William Trotter told me on the beach at Aguas Frescas while I waited for the gig of the captain of the fruit steamer <i epub:type="se:vessel.ship">Andador</i> which was to take me abroad. Reluctantly I was leaving the Land of Always Afternoon. William was remaining, and he favored me with a condensed oral autobiography as we sat on the sands in the shade cast by the Bodega Nacional.</p>
|
||||
<p>As usual, I became aware that the Man from Bombay had already written the story; but as he had compressed it to an eight-word sentence, I have become an expansionist, and have quoted his phrase above, with apologies to him and best regards to <em>Terence</em>.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="helping-the-other-fellow-2" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<section id="helping-the-other-fellow-2" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">II</h3>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t you ever have a desire to go back to the land of derby hats and starched collars?” I asked him. “You seem to be a handy man and a man of action,” I continued, “and I am sure I could find you a comfortable job somewhere in the States.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ragged, shiftless, barefooted, a confirmed eater of the lotus, William Trotter had pleased me much, and I hated to see him gobbled up by the tropics.</p>
|
||||
@ -49,7 +49,7 @@
|
||||
<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>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="helping-the-other-fellow-3" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<section id="helping-the-other-fellow-3" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">III</h3>
|
||||
<p>“Well, sir,” Trotter went on, “we walks the four miles out, through a virgin conservatory of palms and ferns and other roof-garden products, to the president’s summer White House. It was blue, and reminded you of what you see on the stage in the third act, which they describe as ‘same as the first’ on the programs.</p>
|
||||
<p>“There was more than fifty people waiting outside the iron fence that surrounded the house and grounds. There was generals and agitators and épergnes in gold-laced uniforms, and citizens in diamonds and Panama hats—all waiting to get an audience with the Royal Five-Card Draw. And in a kind of a summerhouse in front of the mansion we could see a burnt-sienna man eating breakfast out of gold dishes and taking his time. I judged that the crowd outside had come out for their morning orders and requests, and was afraid to intrude.</p>
|
||||
@ -85,7 +85,7 @@
|
||||
<p>But a soft voice called across the blazing sands. A girl, faintly lemon-tinted, stood in the Calle Real and called. She was bare-armed—but what of that?</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s her!” said William Trotter, looking. “She’s come back! I’m obliged; but I can’t take the job. Thanks, just the same. Ain’t it funny how we can’t do nothing for ourselves, but we can do wonders for the other fellow? You was about to get me with your financial proposition; but we’ve all got our weak points. Timotea’s mine. And, say!” Trotter had turned to leave, but he retraced the step or two that he had taken. “I like to have left you without saying goodbye,” said he. “It kind of rattles you when they go away unexpected for a month and come back the same way. Shake hands. So long! Say, do you remember them gunshots we heard a while ago up at the cuartel? Well, I knew what they was, but I didn’t mention it. It was Clifford Wainwright being shot by a squad of soldiers against a stone wall for giving away secrets of state to that Nicamala republic. Oh, yes, it was rum that did it. He backslided and got his. I guess we all have our weak points, and can’t do much toward helping ourselves. Mine’s waiting for me. I’d have liked to have that job with your brother, but—we’ve all got our weak points. So long!”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="helping-the-other-fellow-4" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<section id="helping-the-other-fellow-4" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">IV</h3>
|
||||
<p>A big black Carib carried me on his back through the surf to the ship’s boat. On the way the purser handed me a letter that he had brought for me at the last moment from the post-office in Aguas Frescas. It was from my brother. He requested me to meet him at the <abbr>St.</abbr> Charles Hotel in New Orleans and accept a position with his house—in either cotton, sugar, or sheetings, and with five thousand dollars a year as my salary.</p>
|
||||
<p>When I arrived at the Crescent City I hurried away—far away from the <abbr>St.</abbr> Charles to a dim <i xml:lang="fr">chambre garnie</i> in Bienville Street. And there, looking down from my attic window from time to time at the old, yellow, absinthe house across the street, I wrote this story to buy my bread and butter.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
|
||||
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
|
||||
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" epub:prefix="z3998: http://www.daisy.org/z3998/2012/vocab/structure/, se: https://standardebooks.org/vocab/1.0" xml:lang="en-US">
|
||||
<head>
|
||||
<title>His Tension</title>
|
||||
<title>His Pension</title>
|
||||
<link href="../css/core.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
|
||||
<link href="../css/local.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
|
||||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="his-tension" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">His Tension</h2>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">His Pension</h2>
|
||||
<p>“Speaking of the $140,000,000 paid out yearly by the government in pensions,” said a prominent member of Hood’s brigade to the Post’s representative, “I am told that a man in Indiana applied for a pension last month on account of a surgical operation he had performed on him during the war. And what do you suppose that surgical operation was?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Haven’t the least idea.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He had his retreat cut off at the battle of Gettysburg!”</p>
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="jimmy-hayes-and-muriel" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Jimmy Hayes and Muriel</h2>
|
||||
<section id="jimmy-hanes-and-muriel-1" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<section id="jimmy-hanes-and-muriel-1" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">I</h3>
|
||||
<p>Supper was over, and there had fallen upon the camp the silence that accompanies the rolling of cornhusk cigarettes. The water hole shone from the dark earth like a patch of fallen sky. Coyotes yelped. Dull thumps indicated the rocking-horse movements of the hobbled ponies as they moved to fresh grass. A half-troop of the Frontier Battalion of Texas Rangers were distributed about the fire.</p>
|
||||
<p>A well-known sound—the fluttering and scraping of chaparral against wooden stirrups—came from the thick brush above the camp. The rangers listened cautiously. They heard a loud and cheerful voice call out reassuringly:</p>
|
||||
@ -28,7 +28,7 @@
|
||||
<p>The ranger took Muriel from Hayes’s knee and went back to his seat on a roll of blankets. The captive twisted and clawed and struggled vigorously in his hand. After holding it for a moment or two, the ranger set it upon the ground. Awkwardly, but swiftly the frog worked its four oddly moving legs until it stopped close by Hayes’s foot.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, dang my hide!” said the other ranger. “The little cuss knows you. Never thought them insects had that much sense!”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="jimmy-hanes-and-muriel-2" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<section id="jimmy-hanes-and-muriel-2" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">II</h3>
|
||||
<p>Jimmy Hayes became a favourite in the ranger camp. He had an endless store of good-nature, and a mild, perennial quality of humour that is well adapted to camp life. He was never without his horned frog. In the bosom of his shirt during rides, on his knee or shoulder in camp, under his blankets at night, the ugly little beast never left him.</p>
|
||||
<p>Jimmy was a humourist of a type that prevails in the rural South and West. Unskilled in originating methods of amusing or in witty conceptions, he had hit upon a comical idea and clung to it reverently. It had seemed to Jimmy a very funny thing to have about his person, with which to amuse his friends, a tame horned frog with a red ribbon around its neck. As it was a happy idea, why not perpetuate it?</p>
|
||||
@ -41,7 +41,7 @@
|
||||
<p>So Manning’s detachment of McLean’s company, Frontier Battalion, was gloomy. It was the first blot on its escutcheon. Never before in the history of the service had a ranger shown the white feather. All of them had liked Jimmy Hayes, and that made it worse.</p>
|
||||
<p>Days, weeks, and months went by, and still that little cloud of unforgotten cowardice hung above the camp.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="jimmy-hanes-and-muriel-3" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<section id="jimmy-hanes-and-muriel-3" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">III</h3>
|
||||
<p>Nearly a year afterward—after many camping grounds and many hundreds of miles guarded and defended—Lieutenant Manning, with almost the same detachment of men, was sent to a point only a few miles below their old camp on the river to look after some smuggling there. One afternoon, while they were riding through a dense mesquite flat, they came upon a patch of open hog-wallow prairie. There they rode upon the scene of an unwritten tragedy.</p>
|
||||
<p>In a big hog-wallow lay the skeletons of three Mexicans. Their clothing alone served to identify them. The largest of the figures had once been Sebastiano Saldar. His great, costly sombrero, heavy with gold ornamentation—a hat famous all along the Rio Grande—lay there pierced by three bullets. Along the ridge of the hog-wallow rested the rusting Winchesters of the Mexicans—all pointing in the same direction.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="lord-oakhursts-curse" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Lord Oakhurst’s Curse</h2>
|
||||
<section id="lord-oakhursts-curse-1" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<section id="lord-oakhursts-curse-1" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">I</h3>
|
||||
<p>Lord Oakhurst lay dying in the oak chamber in the eastern wing of Oakhurst Castle. Through the open window in the calm of the summer evening, came the sweet fragrance of the early violets and budding trees, and to the dying man it seemed as if earth’s loveliness and beauty were never so apparent as on this bright June day, his last day of life.</p>
|
||||
<p>His young wife, whom he loved with a devotion and strength that the presence of the king of terrors himself could not alter, moved about the apartment, weeping and sorrowful, sometimes arranging the sick man’s pillow and inquiring of him in low, mournful tones if anything could be done to give him comfort, and again, with stifled sobs, eating some chocolate caramels which she carried in the pocket of her apron. The servants went to and fro with that quiet and subdued tread which prevails in a house where death is an expected guest, and even the crash of broken china and shivered glass, which announced their approach, seemed to fall upon the ear with less violence and sound than usual.</p>
|
||||
@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
|
||||
<p>How plainly he remembered how she had, with girlish shyness and coyness, at first hesitated, and murmured something to herself about “an old bald-beaded galoot,” but when he told her that to him life without her would be a blasted mockery, and that his income was £50,000 a year, she threw herself on to him and froze there with the tenacity of a tick on a brindled cow, and said, with tears of joy, “Hen-ery, I am thine.”</p>
|
||||
<p>And now he was dying. In a few short hours his spirit would rise up at the call of the Destroyer and, quitting his poor, weak, earthly frame, would go forth into that dim and dreaded Unknown Land, and solve with certainty that Mystery which revealeth itself not to mortal man.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="lord-oakhursts-curse-2" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<section id="lord-oakhursts-curse-2" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">II</h3>
|
||||
<p>A carriage drove rapidly up the avenue and stopped at the door. Sir Everhard FitzArmond, the famous London physician, who had been telegraphed for, alighted and quickly ascended the marble steps. Lady Oakhurst met him at the door, her lovely face expressing great anxiety and grief. “Oh, Sir Everhard, I am so glad you have come. He seems to be sinking rapidly. Did you bring the cream almonds I mentioned in the telegram?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Sir Everhard did not reply, but silently handed her a package, and, slipping a couple of cloves into his mouth, ascended the stairs that led to Lord Oakhurst’s apartment. Lady Oakhurst followed.</p>
|
||||
@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Sir Everhard FitzArmond picked up the paper and read its contents. It was Lord Oakhurst’s will, bequeathing all his property to a scientific institution which should have for its object the invention of a means for extracting peach brandy from sawdust.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sir Everhard glanced quickly around the room. No one was in sight. Dropping the will, he rapidly transferred some valuable ornaments and rare specimens of gold and silver filigree work from the centre table to his pockets, and rang the bell for the servants.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="lord-oakhursts-curse-3" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<section id="lord-oakhursts-curse-3" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">
|
||||
<span epub:type="z3998:roman">III</span>
|
||||
<span epub:type="subtitle">The Curse</span>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
|
||||
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
|
||||
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" epub:prefix="z3998: http://www.daisy.org/z3998/2012/vocab/structure/, se: https://standardebooks.org/vocab/1.0" xml:lang="en-US">
|
||||
<head>
|
||||
<title>Red Conliris Eloquence</title>
|
||||
<title>Red Conlin’s Eloquence</title>
|
||||
<link href="../css/core.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
|
||||
<link href="../css/local.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
|
||||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="red-conliris-eloquence" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Red Conliris Eloquence</h2>
|
||||
<section id="red-conlins-eloquence" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Red Conlin’s Eloquence</h2>
|
||||
<p>They were speaking of the power of great orators, and each one had something to say of his especial favorite.</p>
|
||||
<p>The drummer was for backing Bourke Cockran for oratory against the world, the young lawyer thought the suave Ingersoll the most persuasive pleader, and the insurance agent advanced the claims of the magnetic W. C. P. Breckenridge.</p>
|
||||
<p>“They all talk some,” said the old cattle man, who was puffing his pipe and listening, “but they couldn’t hold a candle to Red Conlin, that run cattle below Santone in ’8o. Ever know Red?”</p>
|
||||
@ -8,113 +8,123 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="schools-and-schools" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Schools and Schools</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">I</h3>
|
||||
<p>Old Jerome Warren lived in a hundred-thousand-dollar house at 35 East Fifty-Soforth Street. He was a downtown broker, so rich that he could afford to walk—for his health—a few blocks in the direction of his office every morning, and then call a cab.</p>
|
||||
<p>He had an adopted son, the son of an old friend named Gilbert—Cyril Scott could play him nicely—who was becoming a successful painter as fast as he could squeeze the paint out of his tubes. Another member of the household was Barbara Ross, a step-niece. Man is born to trouble; so, as old Jerome had no family of his own, he took up the burdens of others.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert and Barbara got along swimmingly. There was a tacit and tactical understanding all round that the two would stand up under a floral bell some high noon, and promise the minister to keep old Jerome’s money in a state of high commotion. But at this point complications must be introduced.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thirty years before, when old Jerome was young Jerome, there was a brother of his named Dick. Dick went West to seek his or somebody else’s fortune. Nothing was heard of him until one day old Jerome had a letter from his brother. It was badly written on ruled paper that smelled of salt bacon and coffee-grounds. The writing was asthmatic and the spelling <abbr>St.</abbr> Vitusy.</p>
|
||||
<p>It appeared that instead of Dick having forced Fortune to stand and deliver, he had been held up himself, and made to give hostages to the enemy. That is, as his letter disclosed, he was on the point of pegging out with a complication of disorders that even whiskey had failed to check. All that his thirty years of prospecting had netted him was one daughter, nineteen years old, as per invoice, whom he was shipping East, charges prepaid, for Jerome to clothe, feed, educate, comfort, and cherish for the rest of her natural life or until matrimony should them part.</p>
|
||||
<p>Old Jerome was a board-walk. Everybody knows that the world is supported by the shoulders of Atlas; and that Atlas stands on a rail-fence; and that the rail-fence is built on a turtle’s back. Now, the turtle has to stand on something; and that is a board-walk made of men like old Jerome.</p>
|
||||
<p>I do not know whether immortality shall accrue to man; but if not so, I would like to know when men like old Jerome get what is due them?</p>
|
||||
<p>They met Nevada Warren at the station. She was a little girl, deeply sunburned and wholesomely good-looking, with a manner that was frankly unsophisticated, yet one that not even a cigar-drummer would intrude upon without thinking twice. Looking at her, somehow you would expect to see her in a short skirt and leather leggings, shooting glass balls or taming mustangs. But in her plain white waist and black skirt she sent you guessing again. With an easy exhibition of strength she swung along a heavy valise, which the uniformed porters tried in vain to wrest from her.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am sure we shall be the best of friends,” said Barbara, pecking at the firm, sunburned cheek.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I hope so,” said Nevada.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Dear little niece,” said old Jerome, “you are as welcome to my home as if it were your father’s own.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thanks,” said Nevada.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And I am going to call you ‘cousin,’ ” said Gilbert, with his charming smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Take the valise, please,” said Nevada. “It weighs a million pounds. It’s got samples from six of dad’s old mines in it,” she explained to Barbara. “I calculate they’d assay about nine cents to the thousand tons, but I promised him to bring them along.”</p>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">II</h3>
|
||||
<p>It is a common custom to refer to the usual complication between one man and two ladies, or one lady and two men, or a lady and a man and a nobleman, or—well, any of those problems—as the triangle. But they are never unqualified triangles. They are always isosceles—never equilateral. So, upon the coming of Nevada Warren, she and Gilbert and Barbara Ross lined up into such a figurative triangle; and of that triangle Barbara formed the hypotenuse.</p>
|
||||
<p>One morning old Jerome was lingering long after breakfast over the dullest morning paper in the city before setting forth to his down-town fly-trap. He had become quite fond of Nevada, finding in her much of his dead brother’s quiet independence and unsuspicious frankness.</p>
|
||||
<p>A maid brought in a note for Miss Nevada Warren.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A messenger-boy delivered it at the door, please,” she said. “He’s waiting for an answer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nevada, who was whistling a Spanish waltz between her teeth, and watching the carriages and autos roll by in the street, took the envelope. She knew it was from Gilbert, before she opened it, by the little gold palette in the upper left-hand corner.</p>
|
||||
<p>After tearing it open she pored over the contents for a while, absorbedly. Then, with a serious face, she went and stood at her uncle’s elbow.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Uncle Jerome, Gilbert is a nice boy, isn’t he?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, bless the child!” said old Jerome, crackling his paper loudly; “of course he is. I raised him myself.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He wouldn’t write anything to anybody that wasn’t exactly—I mean that everybody couldn’t know and read, would he?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’d just like to see him try it,” said uncle, tearing a handful from his newspaper. “Why, what—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Read this note he just sent me, uncle, and see if you think it’s all right and proper. You see, I don’t know much about city people and their ways.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Old Jerome threw his paper down and set both his feet upon it. He took Gilbert’s note and fiercely perused it twice, and then a third time.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, child,” said he, “you had me almost excited, although I was sure of that boy. He’s a duplicate of his father, and he was a gilt-edged diamond. He only asks if you and Barbara will be ready at four o’clock this afternoon for an automobile drive over to Long Island. I don’t see anything to criticise in it except the stationery. I always did hate that shade of blue.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Would it be all right to go?” asked Nevada, eagerly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, yes, yes, child; of course. Why not? Still, it pleases me to see you so careful and candid. Go, by all means.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I didn’t know,” said Nevada, demurely. “I thought I’d ask you. Couldn’t you go with us, uncle?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I? No, no, no, no! I’ve ridden once in a car that boy was driving. Never again! But it’s entirely proper for you and Barbara to go. Yes, yes. But I will not. No, no, no, no!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nevada flew to the door, and said to the maid:</p>
|
||||
<p>“You bet we’ll go. I’ll answer for Miss Barbara. Tell the boy to say to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Warren, ‘You bet we’ll go.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nevada,” called old Jerome, “pardon me, my dear, but wouldn’t it be as well to send him a note in reply? Just a line would do.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, I won’t bother about that,” said Nevada, gayly. “Gilbert will understand—he always does. I never rode in an automobile in my life; but I’ve paddled a canoe down Little Devil River through the Lost Horse Cañon, and if it’s any livelier than that I’d like to know!”</p>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">III</h3>
|
||||
<p>Two months are supposed to have elapsed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Barbara sat in the study of the hundred-thousand-dollar house. It was a good place for her. Many places are provided in the world where men and women may repair for the purpose of extricating themselves from divers difficulties. There are cloisters, wailing-places, watering-places, confessionals, hermitages, lawyer’s offices, beauty parlors, air-ships, and studies; and the greatest of these are studies.</p>
|
||||
<p>It usually takes a hypotenuse a long time to discover that it is the longest side of a triangle. But it’s a long line that has no turning.</p>
|
||||
<p>Barbara was alone. Uncle Jerome and Nevada had gone to the theatre. Barbara had not cared to go. She wanted to stay at home and study in the study. If you, miss, were a stunning New York girl, and saw every day that a brown, ingenuous Western witch was getting hobbles and a lasso on the young man you wanted for yourself, you, too, would lose taste for the oxidized-silver setting of a musical comedy.</p>
|
||||
<p>Barbara sat by the quartered-oak library table. Her right arm rested upon the table, and her dextral fingers nervously manipulated a sealed letter. The letter was addressed to Nevada Warren; and in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope was Gilbert’s little gold palette. It had been delivered at nine o’clock, after Nevada had left.</p>
|
||||
<p>Barbara would have given her pearl necklace to know what the letter contained; but she could not open and read it by the aid of steam, or a pen-handle, or a hair-pin, or any of the generally approved methods, because her position in society forbade such an act. She had tried to read some of the lines of the letter by holding the envelope up to a strong light and pressing it hard against the paper, but Gilbert had too good a taste in stationery to make that possible.</p>
|
||||
<p>At eleven-thirty the theatre-goers returned. It was a delicious winter night. Even so far as from the cab to the door they were powdered thickly with the big flakes downpouring diagonally from the east. Old Jerome growled good-naturedly about villainous cab service and blockaded streets. Nevada, colored like a rose, with sapphire eyes, babbled of the stormy nights in the mountains around dad’s cabin. During all these wintry apostrophes, Barbara, cold at heart, sawed wood—the only appropriate thing she could think of to do.</p>
|
||||
<p>Old Jerome went immediately up-stairs to hot-water-bottles and quinine. Nevada fluttered into the study, the only cheerfully lighted room, subsided into an arm-chair, and, while at the interminable task of unbuttoning her elbow gloves, gave oral testimony as to the demerits of the “show.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, I think <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fields is really amusing—sometimes,” said Barbara. “Here is a letter for you, dear, that came by special delivery just after you had gone.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Who is it from?” asked Nevada, tugging at a button.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, really,” said Barbara, with a smile, “I can only guess. The envelope has that queer little thing in one corner that Gilbert calls a palette, but which looks to me rather like a gilt heart on a school-girl’s valentine.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I wonder what he’s writing to me about” remarked Nevada, listlessly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We’re all alike,” said Barbara; “all women. We try to find out what is in a letter by studying the postmark. As a last resort we use scissors, and read it from the bottom upward. Here it is.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She made a motion as if to toss the letter across the table to Nevada.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Great catamounts!” exclaimed Nevada. “These centre-fire buttons are a nuisance. I’d rather wear buckskins. Oh, Barbara, please shuck the hide off that letter and read it. It’ll be midnight before I get these gloves off!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, dear, you don’t want me to open Gilbert’s letter to you? It’s for you, and you wouldn’t wish any one else to read it, of course!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nevada raised her steady, calm, sapphire eyes from her gloves.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nobody writes me anything that everybody mightn’t read,” she said. “Go on, Barbara. Maybe Gilbert wants us to go out in his car again to-morrow.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Curiosity can do more things than kill a cat; and if emotions, well recognized as feminine, are inimical to feline life, then jealousy would soon leave the whole world catless. Barbara opened the letter, with an indulgent, slightly bored air.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, dear,” said she, “I’ll read it if you want me to.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She slit the envelope, and read the missive with swift-travelling eyes; read it again, and cast a quick, shrewd glance at Nevada, who, for the time, seemed to consider gloves as the world of her interest, and letters from rising artists as no more than messages from Mars.</p>
|
||||
<p>For a quarter of a minute Barbara looked at Nevada with a strange steadfastness; and then a smile so small that it widened her mouth only the sixteenth part of an inch, and narrowed her eyes no more than a twentieth, flashed like an inspired thought across her face.</p>
|
||||
<p>Since the beginning no woman has been a mystery to another woman. Swift as light travels, each penetrates the heart and mind of another, sifts her sister’s words of their cunningest disguises, reads her most hidden desires, and plucks the sophistry from her wiliest talk like hairs from a comb, twiddling them sardonically between her thumb and fingers before letting them float away on the breezes of fundamental doubt. Long ago Eve’s son rang the door-bell of the family residence in Paradise Park, bearing a strange lady on his arm, whom he introduced. Eve took her daughter-in-law aside and lifted a classic eyebrow.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The Land of Nod,” said the bride, languidly flirting the leaf of a palm. “I suppose you’ve been there, of course?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not lately,” said Eve, absolutely unstaggered. “Don’t you think the apple-sauce they serve over there is execrable? I rather like that mulberry-leaf tunic effect, dear; but, of course, the real fig goods are not to be had over there. Come over behind this lilac-bush while the gentlemen split a celery tonic. I think the caterpillar-holes have made your dress open a little in the back.”</p>
|
||||
<p>So, then and there—according to the records—was the alliance formed by the only two who’s-who ladies in the world. Then it was agreed that woman should forever remain as clear as a pane of glass—though glass was yet to be discovered—to other women, and that she should palm herself off on man as a mystery.</p>
|
||||
<p>Barbara seemed to hesitate.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Really, Nevada,” she said, with a little show of embarrassment, “you shouldn’t have insisted on my opening this. I—I’m sure it wasn’t meant for any one else to know.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nevada forgot her gloves for a moment.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then read it aloud,” she said. “Since you’ve already read it, what’s the difference? If <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Warren has written to me something that any one else oughtn’t to know, that is all the more reason why everybody should know it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well,” said Barbara, “this is what it says: ‘Dearest Nevada—Come to my studio at twelve o’clock to-night. Do not fail.’ ” Barbara rose and dropped the note in Nevada’s lap. “I’m awfully sorry,” she said, “that I knew. It isn’t like Gilbert. There must be some mistake. Just consider that I am ignorant of it, will you, dear? I must go up-stairs now, I have such a headache. I’m sure I don’t understand the note. Perhaps Gilbert has been dining too well, and will explain. Good night!”</p>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">IV</h3>
|
||||
<p>Nevada tiptoed to the hall, and heard Barbara’s door close upstairs. The bronze clock in the study told the hour of twelve was fifteen minutes away. She ran swiftly to the front door, and let herself out into the snow-storm. Gilbert Warren’s studio was six squares away.</p>
|
||||
<p>By aerial ferry the white, silent forces of the storm attacked the city from beyond the sullen East River. Already the snow lay a foot deep on the pavements, the drifts heaping themselves like scaling-ladders against the walls of the besieged town. The Avenue was as quiet as a street in Pompeii. Cabs now and then skimmed past like white-winged gulls over a moonlit ocean; and less frequent motor-cars—sustaining the comparison—hissed through the foaming waves like submarine boats on their jocund, perilous journeys.</p>
|
||||
<p>Nevada plunged like a wind-driven storm-petrel on her way. She looked up at the ragged sierras of cloud-capped buildings that rose above the streets, shaded by the night lights and the congealed vapors to gray, drab, ashen, lavender, dun, and cerulean tints. They were so like the wintry mountains of her Western home that she felt a satisfaction such as the hundred-thousand-dollar house had seldom brought her.</p>
|
||||
<p>A policeman caused her to waver on a corner, just by his eye and weight.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello, Mabel!” said he. “Kind of late for you to be out, ain’t it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I—I am just going to the drug store,” said Nevada, hurrying past him.</p>
|
||||
<p>The excuse serves as a passport for the most sophisticated. Does it prove that woman never progresses, or that she sprang from Adam’s rib, full-fledged in intellect and wiles?</p>
|
||||
<p>Turning eastward, the direct blast cut down Nevada’s speed one-half. She made zigzag tracks in the snow; but she was as tough as a piñon sapling, and bowed to it as gracefully. Suddenly the studio-building loomed before her, a familiar landmark, like a cliff above some well-remembered cañon. The haunt of business and its hostile neighbor, art, was darkened and silent. The elevator stopped at ten.</p>
|
||||
<p>Up eight flights of Stygian stairs Nevada climbed, and rapped firmly at the door numbered “89.” She had been there many times before, with Barbara and Uncle Jerome.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert opened the door. He had a crayon pencil in one hand, a green shade over his eyes, and a pipe in his mouth. The pipe dropped to the floor.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Am I late?” asked Nevada. “I came as quick as I could. Uncle and me were at the theatre this evening. Here I am, Gilbert!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert did a Pygmalion-and-Galatea act. He changed from a statue of stupefaction to a young man with a problem to tackle. He admitted Nevada, got a whisk-broom, and began to brush the snow from her clothes. A great lamp, with a green shade, hung over an easel, where the artist had been sketching in crayon.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You wanted me,” said Nevada simply, “and I came. You said so in your letter. What did you send for me for?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You read my letter?” inquired Gilbert, sparring for wind.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Barbara read it to me. I saw it afterward. It said: ‘Come to my studio at twelve to-night, and do not fail.’ I thought you were sick, of course, but you don’t seem to be.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Aha!” said Gilbert irrelevantly. “I’ll tell you why I asked you to come, Nevada. I want you to marry me immediately—to-night. What’s a little snow-storm? Will you do it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You might have noticed that I would, long ago,” said Nevada. “And I’m rather stuck on the snow-storm idea, myself. I surely would hate one of these flowery church noon-weddings. Gilbert, I didn’t know you had grit enough to propose it this way. Let’s shock ’em—it’s our funeral, ain’t it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You bet!” said Gilbert. “Where did I hear that expression?” he added to himself. “Wait a minute, Nevada; I want to do a little ‘phoning.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He shut himself in a little dressing-room, and called upon the lightnings of the heavens—condensed into unromantic numbers and districts.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That you, Jack? You confounded sleepyhead! Yes, wake up; this is me—or I—oh, bother the difference in grammar! I’m going to be married right away. Yes! Wake up your sister—don’t answer me back; bring her along, too—you <em>must</em>! Remind Agnes of the time I saved her from drowning in Lake Ronkonkoma—I know it’s caddish to refer to it, but she must come with you. Yes. Nevada is here, waiting. We’ve been engaged quite a while. Some opposition among the relatives, you know, and we have to pull it off this way. We’re waiting here for you. Don’t let Agnes out-talk you—bring her! You will? Good old boy! I’ll order a carriage to call for you, double-quick time. Confound you, Jack, you’re all right!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert returned to the room where Nevada waited.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My old friend, Jack Peyton, and his sister were to have been here at a quarter to twelve,” he explained; “but Jack is so confoundedly slow. I’ve just ‘phoned them to hurry. They’ll be here in a few minutes. I’m the happiest man in the world, Nevada! What did you do with the letter I sent you to-day?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve got it cinched here,” said Nevada, pulling it out from beneath her opera-cloak.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert drew the letter from the envelope and looked it over carefully. Then he looked at Nevada thoughtfully.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Didn’t you think it rather queer that I should ask you to come to my studio at midnight?” he asked.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, no,” said Nevada, rounding her eyes. “Not if you needed me. Out West, when a pal sends you a hurry call—ain’t that what you say here?—we get there first and talk about it after the row is over. And it’s usually snowing there, too, when things happen. So I didn’t mind.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert rushed into another room, and came back burdened with overcoats warranted to turn wind, rain, or snow.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Put this raincoat on,” he said, holding it for her. “We have a quarter of a mile to go. Old Jack and his sister will be here in a few minutes.” He began to struggle into a heavy coat. “Oh, Nevada,” he said, “just look at the headlines on the front page of that evening paper on the table, will you? It’s about your section of the West, and I know it will interest you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He waited a full minute, pretending to find trouble in the getting on of his overcoat, and then turned. Nevada had not moved. She was looking at him with strange and pensive directness. Her cheeks had a flush on them beyond the color that had been contributed by the wind and snow; but her eyes were steady.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was going to tell you,” she said, “anyhow, before you—before we—before—well, before anything. Dad never gave me a day of schooling. I never learned to read or write a darned word. Now if—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Pounding their uncertain way up-stairs, the feet of Jack, the somnolent, and Agnes, the grateful, were heard.</p>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">V</h3>
|
||||
<p>When <abbr>Mr.</abbr> and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Gilbert Warren were spinning softly homeward in a closed carriage, after the ceremony, Gilbert said:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nevada, would you really like to know what I wrote you in the letter that you received to-night?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Fire away!” said his bride.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Word for word,” said Gilbert, “it was this: ‘My dear Miss Warren—You were right about the flower. It was a hydrangea, and not a lilac.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said Nevada. “But let’s forget it. The joke’s on Barbara, anyway!”</p>
|
||||
<section id="schools-and-schools-1" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">I</h3>
|
||||
<p>Old Jerome Warren lived in a hundred-thousand-dollar house at 35 East Fifty-Soforth Street. He was a downtown broker, so rich that he could afford to walk—for his health—a few blocks in the direction of his office every morning, and then call a cab.</p>
|
||||
<p>He had an adopted son, the son of an old friend named Gilbert—Cyril Scott could play him nicely—who was becoming a successful painter as fast as he could squeeze the paint out of his tubes. Another member of the household was Barbara Ross, a step-niece. Man is born to trouble; so, as old Jerome had no family of his own, he took up the burdens of others.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert and Barbara got along swimmingly. There was a tacit and tactical understanding all round that the two would stand up under a floral bell some high noon, and promise the minister to keep old Jerome’s money in a state of high commotion. But at this point complications must be introduced.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thirty years before, when old Jerome was young Jerome, there was a brother of his named Dick. Dick went West to seek his or somebody else’s fortune. Nothing was heard of him until one day old Jerome had a letter from his brother. It was badly written on ruled paper that smelled of salt bacon and coffee-grounds. The writing was asthmatic and the spelling <abbr>St.</abbr> Vitusy.</p>
|
||||
<p>It appeared that instead of Dick having forced Fortune to stand and deliver, he had been held up himself, and made to give hostages to the enemy. That is, as his letter disclosed, he was on the point of pegging out with a complication of disorders that even whiskey had failed to check. All that his thirty years of prospecting had netted him was one daughter, nineteen years old, as per invoice, whom he was shipping East, charges prepaid, for Jerome to clothe, feed, educate, comfort, and cherish for the rest of her natural life or until matrimony should them part.</p>
|
||||
<p>Old Jerome was a board-walk. Everybody knows that the world is supported by the shoulders of Atlas; and that Atlas stands on a rail-fence; and that the rail-fence is built on a turtle’s back. Now, the turtle has to stand on something; and that is a board-walk made of men like old Jerome.</p>
|
||||
<p>I do not know whether immortality shall accrue to man; but if not so, I would like to know when men like old Jerome get what is due them?</p>
|
||||
<p>They met Nevada Warren at the station. She was a little girl, deeply sunburned and wholesomely good-looking, with a manner that was frankly unsophisticated, yet one that not even a cigar-drummer would intrude upon without thinking twice. Looking at her, somehow you would expect to see her in a short skirt and leather leggings, shooting glass balls or taming mustangs. But in her plain white waist and black skirt she sent you guessing again. With an easy exhibition of strength she swung along a heavy valise, which the uniformed porters tried in vain to wrest from her.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am sure we shall be the best of friends,” said Barbara, pecking at the firm, sunburned cheek.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I hope so,” said Nevada.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Dear little niece,” said old Jerome, “you are as welcome to my home as if it were your father’s own.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thanks,” said Nevada.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And I am going to call you ‘cousin,’ ” said Gilbert, with his charming smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Take the valise, please,” said Nevada. “It weighs a million pounds. It’s got samples from six of dad’s old mines in it,” she explained to Barbara. “I calculate they’d assay about nine cents to the thousand tons, but I promised him to bring them along.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="schools-and-schools-2" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">II</h3>
|
||||
<p>It is a common custom to refer to the usual complication between one man and two ladies, or one lady and two men, or a lady and a man and a nobleman, or—well, any of those problems—as the triangle. But they are never unqualified triangles. They are always isosceles—never equilateral. So, upon the coming of Nevada Warren, she and Gilbert and Barbara Ross lined up into such a figurative triangle; and of that triangle Barbara formed the hypotenuse.</p>
|
||||
<p>One morning old Jerome was lingering long after breakfast over the dullest morning paper in the city before setting forth to his down-town fly-trap. He had become quite fond of Nevada, finding in her much of his dead brother’s quiet independence and unsuspicious frankness.</p>
|
||||
<p>A maid brought in a note for Miss Nevada Warren.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A messenger-boy delivered it at the door, please,” she said. “He’s waiting for an answer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nevada, who was whistling a Spanish waltz between her teeth, and watching the carriages and autos roll by in the street, took the envelope. She knew it was from Gilbert, before she opened it, by the little gold palette in the upper left-hand corner.</p>
|
||||
<p>After tearing it open she pored over the contents for a while, absorbedly. Then, with a serious face, she went and stood at her uncle’s elbow.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Uncle Jerome, Gilbert is a nice boy, isn’t he?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, bless the child!” said old Jerome, crackling his paper loudly; “of course he is. I raised him myself.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He wouldn’t write anything to anybody that wasn’t exactly—I mean that everybody couldn’t know and read, would he?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’d just like to see him try it,” said uncle, tearing a handful from his newspaper. “Why, what—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Read this note he just sent me, uncle, and see if you think it’s all right and proper. You see, I don’t know much about city people and their ways.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Old Jerome threw his paper down and set both his feet upon it. He took Gilbert’s note and fiercely perused it twice, and then a third time.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, child,” said he, “you had me almost excited, although I was sure of that boy. He’s a duplicate of his father, and he was a gilt-edged diamond. He only asks if you and Barbara will be ready at four o’clock this afternoon for an automobile drive over to Long Island. I don’t see anything to criticise in it except the stationery. I always did hate that shade of blue.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Would it be all right to go?” asked Nevada, eagerly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, yes, yes, child; of course. Why not? Still, it pleases me to see you so careful and candid. Go, by all means.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I didn’t know,” said Nevada, demurely. “I thought I’d ask you. Couldn’t you go with us, uncle?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I? No, no, no, no! I’ve ridden once in a car that boy was driving. Never again! But it’s entirely proper for you and Barbara to go. Yes, yes. But I will not. No, no, no, no!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nevada flew to the door, and said to the maid:</p>
|
||||
<p>“You bet we’ll go. I’ll answer for Miss Barbara. Tell the boy to say to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Warren, ‘You bet we’ll go.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nevada,” called old Jerome, “pardon me, my dear, but wouldn’t it be as well to send him a note in reply? Just a line would do.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, I won’t bother about that,” said Nevada, gayly. “Gilbert will understand—he always does. I never rode in an automobile in my life; but I’ve paddled a canoe down Little Devil River through the Lost Horse Cañon, and if it’s any livelier than that I’d like to know!”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="schools-and-schools-3" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">III</h3>
|
||||
<p>Two months are supposed to have elapsed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Barbara sat in the study of the hundred-thousand-dollar house. It was a good place for her. Many places are provided in the world where men and women may repair for the purpose of extricating themselves from divers difficulties. There are cloisters, wailing-places, watering-places, confessionals, hermitages, lawyer’s offices, beauty parlors, air-ships, and studies; and the greatest of these are studies.</p>
|
||||
<p>It usually takes a hypotenuse a long time to discover that it is the longest side of a triangle. But it’s a long line that has no turning.</p>
|
||||
<p>Barbara was alone. Uncle Jerome and Nevada had gone to the theatre. Barbara had not cared to go. She wanted to stay at home and study in the study. If you, miss, were a stunning New York girl, and saw every day that a brown, ingenuous Western witch was getting hobbles and a lasso on the young man you wanted for yourself, you, too, would lose taste for the oxidized-silver setting of a musical comedy.</p>
|
||||
<p>Barbara sat by the quartered-oak library table. Her right arm rested upon the table, and her dextral fingers nervously manipulated a sealed letter. The letter was addressed to Nevada Warren; and in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope was Gilbert’s little gold palette. It had been delivered at nine o’clock, after Nevada had left.</p>
|
||||
<p>Barbara would have given her pearl necklace to know what the letter contained; but she could not open and read it by the aid of steam, or a pen-handle, or a hair-pin, or any of the generally approved methods, because her position in society forbade such an act. She had tried to read some of the lines of the letter by holding the envelope up to a strong light and pressing it hard against the paper, but Gilbert had too good a taste in stationery to make that possible.</p>
|
||||
<p>At eleven-thirty the theatre-goers returned. It was a delicious winter night. Even so far as from the cab to the door they were powdered thickly with the big flakes downpouring diagonally from the east. Old Jerome growled good-naturedly about villainous cab service and blockaded streets. Nevada, colored like a rose, with sapphire eyes, babbled of the stormy nights in the mountains around dad’s cabin. During all these wintry apostrophes, Barbara, cold at heart, sawed wood—the only appropriate thing she could think of to do.</p>
|
||||
<p>Old Jerome went immediately up-stairs to hot-water-bottles and quinine. Nevada fluttered into the study, the only cheerfully lighted room, subsided into an arm-chair, and, while at the interminable task of unbuttoning her elbow gloves, gave oral testimony as to the demerits of the “show.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, I think <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fields is really amusing—sometimes,” said Barbara. “Here is a letter for you, dear, that came by special delivery just after you had gone.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Who is it from?” asked Nevada, tugging at a button.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, really,” said Barbara, with a smile, “I can only guess. The envelope has that queer little thing in one corner that Gilbert calls a palette, but which looks to me rather like a gilt heart on a school-girl’s valentine.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I wonder what he’s writing to me about” remarked Nevada, listlessly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We’re all alike,” said Barbara; “all women. We try to find out what is in a letter by studying the postmark. As a last resort we use scissors, and read it from the bottom upward. Here it is.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She made a motion as if to toss the letter across the table to Nevada.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Great catamounts!” exclaimed Nevada. “These centre-fire buttons are a nuisance. I’d rather wear buckskins. Oh, Barbara, please shuck the hide off that letter and read it. It’ll be midnight before I get these gloves off!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, dear, you don’t want me to open Gilbert’s letter to you? It’s for you, and you wouldn’t wish any one else to read it, of course!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nevada raised her steady, calm, sapphire eyes from her gloves.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nobody writes me anything that everybody mightn’t read,” she said. “Go on, Barbara. Maybe Gilbert wants us to go out in his car again to-morrow.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Curiosity can do more things than kill a cat; and if emotions, well recognized as feminine, are inimical to feline life, then jealousy would soon leave the whole world catless. Barbara opened the letter, with an indulgent, slightly bored air.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, dear,” said she, “I’ll read it if you want me to.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She slit the envelope, and read the missive with swift-travelling eyes; read it again, and cast a quick, shrewd glance at Nevada, who, for the time, seemed to consider gloves as the world of her interest, and letters from rising artists as no more than messages from Mars.</p>
|
||||
<p>For a quarter of a minute Barbara looked at Nevada with a strange steadfastness; and then a smile so small that it widened her mouth only the sixteenth part of an inch, and narrowed her eyes no more than a twentieth, flashed like an inspired thought across her face.</p>
|
||||
<p>Since the beginning no woman has been a mystery to another woman. Swift as light travels, each penetrates the heart and mind of another, sifts her sister’s words of their cunningest disguises, reads her most hidden desires, and plucks the sophistry from her wiliest talk like hairs from a comb, twiddling them sardonically between her thumb and fingers before letting them float away on the breezes of fundamental doubt. Long ago Eve’s son rang the door-bell of the family residence in Paradise Park, bearing a strange lady on his arm, whom he introduced. Eve took her daughter-in-law aside and lifted a classic eyebrow.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The Land of Nod,” said the bride, languidly flirting the leaf of a palm. “I suppose you’ve been there, of course?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not lately,” said Eve, absolutely unstaggered. “Don’t you think the apple-sauce they serve over there is execrable? I rather like that mulberry-leaf tunic effect, dear; but, of course, the real fig goods are not to be had over there. Come over behind this lilac-bush while the gentlemen split a celery tonic. I think the caterpillar-holes have made your dress open a little in the back.”</p>
|
||||
<p>So, then and there—according to the records—was the alliance formed by the only two who’s-who ladies in the world. Then it was agreed that woman should forever remain as clear as a pane of glass—though glass was yet to be discovered—to other women, and that she should palm herself off on man as a mystery.</p>
|
||||
<p>Barbara seemed to hesitate.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Really, Nevada,” she said, with a little show of embarrassment, “you shouldn’t have insisted on my opening this. I—I’m sure it wasn’t meant for any one else to know.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nevada forgot her gloves for a moment.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then read it aloud,” she said. “Since you’ve already read it, what’s the difference? If <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Warren has written to me something that any one else oughtn’t to know, that is all the more reason why everybody should know it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well,” said Barbara, “this is what it says: ‘Dearest Nevada—Come to my studio at twelve o’clock to-night. Do not fail.’ ” Barbara rose and dropped the note in Nevada’s lap. “I’m awfully sorry,” she said, “that I knew. It isn’t like Gilbert. There must be some mistake. Just consider that I am ignorant of it, will you, dear? I must go up-stairs now, I have such a headache. I’m sure I don’t understand the note. Perhaps Gilbert has been dining too well, and will explain. Good night!”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="schools-and-schools-4" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">IV</h3>
|
||||
<p>Nevada tiptoed to the hall, and heard Barbara’s door close upstairs. The bronze clock in the study told the hour of twelve was fifteen minutes away. She ran swiftly to the front door, and let herself out into the snow-storm. Gilbert Warren’s studio was six squares away.</p>
|
||||
<p>By aerial ferry the white, silent forces of the storm attacked the city from beyond the sullen East River. Already the snow lay a foot deep on the pavements, the drifts heaping themselves like scaling-ladders against the walls of the besieged town. The Avenue was as quiet as a street in Pompeii. Cabs now and then skimmed past like white-winged gulls over a moonlit ocean; and less frequent motor-cars—sustaining the comparison—hissed through the foaming waves like submarine boats on their jocund, perilous journeys.</p>
|
||||
<p>Nevada plunged like a wind-driven storm-petrel on her way. She looked up at the ragged sierras of cloud-capped buildings that rose above the streets, shaded by the night lights and the congealed vapors to gray, drab, ashen, lavender, dun, and cerulean tints. They were so like the wintry mountains of her Western home that she felt a satisfaction such as the hundred-thousand-dollar house had seldom brought her.</p>
|
||||
<p>A policeman caused her to waver on a corner, just by his eye and weight.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello, Mabel!” said he. “Kind of late for you to be out, ain’t it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I—I am just going to the drug store,” said Nevada, hurrying past him.</p>
|
||||
<p>The excuse serves as a passport for the most sophisticated. Does it prove that woman never progresses, or that she sprang from Adam’s rib, full-fledged in intellect and wiles?</p>
|
||||
<p>Turning eastward, the direct blast cut down Nevada’s speed one-half. She made zigzag tracks in the snow; but she was as tough as a piñon sapling, and bowed to it as gracefully. Suddenly the studio-building loomed before her, a familiar landmark, like a cliff above some well-remembered cañon. The haunt of business and its hostile neighbor, art, was darkened and silent. The elevator stopped at ten.</p>
|
||||
<p>Up eight flights of Stygian stairs Nevada climbed, and rapped firmly at the door numbered “89.” She had been there many times before, with Barbara and Uncle Jerome.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert opened the door. He had a crayon pencil in one hand, a green shade over his eyes, and a pipe in his mouth. The pipe dropped to the floor.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Am I late?” asked Nevada. “I came as quick as I could. Uncle and me were at the theatre this evening. Here I am, Gilbert!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert did a Pygmalion-and-Galatea act. He changed from a statue of stupefaction to a young man with a problem to tackle. He admitted Nevada, got a whisk-broom, and began to brush the snow from her clothes. A great lamp, with a green shade, hung over an easel, where the artist had been sketching in crayon.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You wanted me,” said Nevada simply, “and I came. You said so in your letter. What did you send for me for?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You read my letter?” inquired Gilbert, sparring for wind.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Barbara read it to me. I saw it afterward. It said: ‘Come to my studio at twelve to-night, and do not fail.’ I thought you were sick, of course, but you don’t seem to be.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Aha!” said Gilbert irrelevantly. “I’ll tell you why I asked you to come, Nevada. I want you to marry me immediately—to-night. What’s a little snow-storm? Will you do it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You might have noticed that I would, long ago,” said Nevada. “And I’m rather stuck on the snow-storm idea, myself. I surely would hate one of these flowery church noon-weddings. Gilbert, I didn’t know you had grit enough to propose it this way. Let’s shock ’em—it’s our funeral, ain’t it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You bet!” said Gilbert. “Where did I hear that expression?” he added to himself. “Wait a minute, Nevada; I want to do a little ‘phoning.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He shut himself in a little dressing-room, and called upon the lightnings of the heavens—condensed into unromantic numbers and districts.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That you, Jack? You confounded sleepyhead! Yes, wake up; this is me—or I—oh, bother the difference in grammar! I’m going to be married right away. Yes! Wake up your sister—don’t answer me back; bring her along, too—you <em>must</em>! Remind Agnes of the time I saved her from drowning in Lake Ronkonkoma—I know it’s caddish to refer to it, but she must come with you. Yes. Nevada is here, waiting. We’ve been engaged quite a while. Some opposition among the relatives, you know, and we have to pull it off this way. We’re waiting here for you. Don’t let Agnes out-talk you—bring her! You will? Good old boy! I’ll order a carriage to call for you, double-quick time. Confound you, Jack, you’re all right!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert returned to the room where Nevada waited.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My old friend, Jack Peyton, and his sister were to have been here at a quarter to twelve,” he explained; “but Jack is so confoundedly slow. I’ve just ‘phoned them to hurry. They’ll be here in a few minutes. I’m the happiest man in the world, Nevada! What did you do with the letter I sent you to-day?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve got it cinched here,” said Nevada, pulling it out from beneath her opera-cloak.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert drew the letter from the envelope and looked it over carefully. Then he looked at Nevada thoughtfully.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Didn’t you think it rather queer that I should ask you to come to my studio at midnight?” he asked.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, no,” said Nevada, rounding her eyes. “Not if you needed me. Out West, when a pal sends you a hurry call—ain’t that what you say here?—we get there first and talk about it after the row is over. And it’s usually snowing there, too, when things happen. So I didn’t mind.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Gilbert rushed into another room, and came back burdened with overcoats warranted to turn wind, rain, or snow.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Put this raincoat on,” he said, holding it for her. “We have a quarter of a mile to go. Old Jack and his sister will be here in a few minutes.” He began to struggle into a heavy coat. “Oh, Nevada,” he said, “just look at the headlines on the front page of that evening paper on the table, will you? It’s about your section of the West, and I know it will interest you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He waited a full minute, pretending to find trouble in the getting on of his overcoat, and then turned. Nevada had not moved. She was looking at him with strange and pensive directness. Her cheeks had a flush on them beyond the color that had been contributed by the wind and snow; but her eyes were steady.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was going to tell you,” she said, “anyhow, before you—before we—before—well, before anything. Dad never gave me a day of schooling. I never learned to read or write a darned word. Now if—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Pounding their uncertain way up-stairs, the feet of Jack, the somnolent, and Agnes, the grateful, were heard.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="schools-and-schools-5" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">V</h3>
|
||||
<p>When <abbr>Mr.</abbr> and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Gilbert Warren were spinning softly homeward in a closed carriage, after the ceremony, Gilbert said:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nevada, would you really like to know what I wrote you in the letter that you received to-night?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Fire away!” said his bride.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Word for word,” said Gilbert, “it was this: ‘My dear Miss Warren—You were right about the flower. It was a hydrangea, and not a lilac.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said Nevada. “But let’s forget it. The joke’s on Barbara, anyway!”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
|
||||
<link href="../css/local.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
|
||||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="sound-and-fury" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<section id="sound-and-fury" epub:type="volume se:short-story z3998:drama">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Sound and Fury</h2>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<b>Persons of the Drama</b>
|
||||
@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>Good morning, Miss Lore. Glad to see you so prompt. We should finish that June installment for the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Epoch</i> today. Leverett is crowding me for it. Are you quite ready? We will resume where we left off yesterday. (<i>Dictates</i>.) “Kate, with a sigh, rose from his knees, and—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Good morning, Miss Lore. Glad to see you so prompt. We should finish that June installment for the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Epoch</i> today. Leverett is crowding me for it. Are you quite ready? We will resume where we left off yesterday. <i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Dictates.</i> “Kate, with a sigh, rose from his knees, and—”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -36,7 +36,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>Er—no—“his,” if you please. It is the love scene in the garden. (<i>Dictates</i>.) “Rose from his knees where, blushing with youth’s bewitching coyness, she had rested for a moment after Cortland had declared his love. The hour was one of supreme and tender joy. When Kate—scene that Cortland never—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Er—no—“his,” if you please. It is the love scene in the garden. <i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Dictates.</i> “Rose from his knees where, blushing with youth’s bewitching coyness, she had rested for a moment after Cortland had declared his love. The hour was one of supreme and tender joy. When Kate—scene that Cortland never—”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -48,7 +48,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>The context will explain. (<em>Dictates</em>.) “When Kate—scene that Cortland never forgot—came tripping across the lawn it seemed to him the fairest sight that earth had ever offered to his gaze.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The context will explain. <i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Dictates.</i> “When Kate—scene that Cortland never forgot—came tripping across the lawn it seemed to him the fairest sight that earth had ever offered to his gaze.”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>dictates</i>)—“Kate had abandoned herself to the joy of her newfound love so completely, that no shadow of her former grief was cast upon it. Cortland, with his arm firmly entwined about her waist, knew nothing of her sighs—”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">dictates</i> “Kate had abandoned herself to the joy of her newfound love so completely, that no shadow of her former grief was cast upon it. Cortland, with his arm firmly entwined about her waist, knew nothing of her sighs—”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -72,7 +72,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<em>frowning</em>)—“Of her sighs and tears of the previous night.”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">frowning</i> “Of her sighs and tears of the previous night.”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -84,7 +84,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<em>dictates</em>)—“To Cortland the chief charm of this girl was her look of innocence and unworldiness. Never had nun—”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">dictates</i> “To Cortland the chief charm of this girl was her look of innocence and unworldiness. Never had nun—”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -96,7 +96,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>emphatically</i>)—“Never had nun in cloistered cell a face more sweet and pure.”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">emphatically</i> “Never had nun in cloistered cell a face more sweet and pure.”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -108,7 +108,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persoa"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>dictates</i>)—“But now Kate must hasten back to the house lest her absence be discovered. After a fond farewell she turned and sped lightly away. Cortland’s gaze followed her. He watched her rise—”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">dictates</i> “But now Kate must hasten back to the house lest her absence be discovered. After a fond farewell she turned and sped lightly away. Cortland’s gaze followed her. He watched her rise—”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -120,7 +120,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>with extreme politeness</i>)—Possibly you would gather my meaning more intelligently if you would wait for the conclusion of the sentence. (<i>Dictates</i>.) “Watched her rise as gracefully as a fawn as she mounted the eastern terrace.”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">with extreme politeness</i> Possibly you would gather my meaning more intelligently if you would wait for the conclusion of the sentence. <i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Dictates.</i> “Watched her rise as gracefully as a fawn as she mounted the eastern terrace.”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -132,7 +132,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>dictates</i>)—“And yet Cortland’s position was so far above that of this rustic maiden that he dreaded to consider the social upheaval that would ensue should he marry her. In no uncertain tones the traditional voices of his caste and world cried out loudly to him to let her go. What should follow—”</p>
|
||||
<p>(<i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">dictates</> “And yet Cortland’s position was so far above that of this rustic maiden that he dreaded to consider the social upheaval that would ensue should he marry her. In no uncertain tones the traditional voices of his caste and world cried out loudly to him to let her go. What should follow—”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -144,7 +144,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>coldly</i>)—Pardon me. I was not seeking to impose upon you the task of a collaborator. Kindly consider the question a part of the text.</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">coldly</i> Pardon me. I was not seeking to impose upon you the task of a collaborator. Kindly consider the question a part of the text.</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -156,13 +156,13 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>dictates</i>)—“On one side was love and Kate; on the other side his heritage of social position and family pride. Would love win? Love, that the poets tell us will last forever! (<i>Perceives that Miss Lore looks fatigued, and looks at his watch.</i>) That’s a good long stretch. Perhaps we’d better knock off a bit.”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">dictates</i> “On one side was love and Kate; on the other side his heritage of social position and family pride. Would love win? Love, that the poets tell us will last forever! <i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Perceives that Miss Lore looks fatigued, and looks at his watch.</i> That’s a good long stretch. Perhaps we’d better knock off a bit.”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td/>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(Miss Lore <i>does not reply</i>.)</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction"><span epub:type="z3998:persona">Miss Lore</span> does not reply</i>.</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -180,7 +180,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>Very well, then, we will continue. (<i>Dictates</i>.) “In spite of these qualms and doubts, Cortland was a happy man. That night at the club he silently toasted Kate’s bright eyes in a bumper of the rarest vintage. Afterward he set out for a stroll with, as Kate on—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Very well, then, we will continue. <i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Dictates.</i> “In spite of these qualms and doubts, Cortland was a happy man. That night at the club he silently toasted Kate’s bright eyes in a bumper of the rarest vintage. Afterward he set out for a stroll with, as Kate on—”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -192,7 +192,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>astounded</i>)—Wh—wh—I’m afraid I fail to understand you.</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">astounded</i> Wh—wh—I’m afraid I fail to understand you.</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -204,19 +204,19 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>still darkly wandering</i>)—Will you kindly point out, Miss Lore, where I have intimated that Cortland was “full,” if you prefer that word?</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">still darkly wandering</i> Will you kindly point out, Miss Lore, where I have intimated that Cortland was “full,” if you prefer that word?</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona">Miss Lore</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>calmly consulting her stenographic notes</i>)—It is right here, word for word. (Reads.) “Afterward he set out for a stroll with a skate on.”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">calmly consulting her stenographic notes</i> It is right here, word for word. <i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Reads.</i> “Afterward he set out for a stroll with a skate on.”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>with peculiar emphasis</i>)—Ah! And now will you kindly take down the expurgated phrase? (<i>Dictates</i>.) “Afterward he set out for a stroll with, as Kate on one occasion had fancifully told him, her spirit leaning upon his arm.”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">with peculiar emphasis</i> Ah! And now will you kindly take down the expurgated phrase? <i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Dictates.</i> “Afterward he set out for a stroll with, as Kate on one occasion had fancifully told him, her spirit leaning upon his arm.”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -228,7 +228,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>dictates</i>)—Chapter thirty-four. Heading—“What Kate Found in the Garden.” “That fragrant summer morning brought gracious tasks to all. The bees were at the honeysuckle blossoms on the porch. Kate, singing a little song, was training the riotous branches of her favorite woodbine. The sun, himself, had rows—”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">dictates</i> Chapter thirty-four. Heading—“What Kate Found in the Garden.” “That fragrant summer morning brought gracious tasks to all. The bees were at the honeysuckle blossoms on the porch. Kate, singing a little song, was training the riotous branches of her favorite woodbine. The sun, himself, had rows—”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -240,7 +240,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>very slowly and with desperate deliberation</i>)—“The—sun—himself—had—rows—of—blushing—pinks—and—hollyhocks—and—hyacinths—waiting—that—he—might—dry—their—dew-drenched—cups.”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">very slowly and with desperate deliberation</i> “The—sun—himself—had—rows—of—blushing—pinks—and—hollyhocks—and—hyacinths—waiting—that—he—might—dry—their—dew-drenched—cups.”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -252,7 +252,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>dictates</i>)—“The earliest trolley, scattering the birds from its pathway like some marauding cat, brought Cortland over from Oldport. He had forgotten his fair—”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">dictates</i> “The earliest trolley, scattering the birds from its pathway like some marauding cat, brought Cortland over from Oldport. He had forgotten his fair—”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -264,7 +264,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>very loudly</i>)—“Forgotten his fair and roseate visions of the night in the practical light of the sober morn.”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">very loudly</i> “Forgotten his fair and roseate visions of the night in the practical light of the sober morn.”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -276,7 +276,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>dictates</i>)—“He greeted her with his usual smile and manner. ‘See the waves,’ he cried, pointing to the heaving waters of the sea, ‘ever wooing and returning to the rockbound shore.’ ” “ ‘Ready to break,’ Kate said, with—”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">dictates</i> “He greeted her with his usual smile and manner. ‘See the waves,’ he cried, pointing to the heaving waters of the sea, ‘ever wooing and returning to the rockbound shore.’ ” “ ‘Ready to break,’ Kate said, with—”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -288,7 +288,7 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>with suspicious calmness</i>)—There are times, Miss Lore, when a man becomes so far exasperated that even a woman—But suppose we finish the sentence. (<i>Dictates</i>.) “ ‘Ready to break,’ Kate said, with the thrilling look of a soul-awakened woman, ‘into foam and spray, destroying themselves upon the shore they love so well.”</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">with suspicious calmness</i> There are times, Miss Lore, when a man becomes so far exasperated that even a woman—But suppose we finish the sentence. <i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Dictates.</i> “ ‘Ready to break,’ Kate said, with the thrilling look of a soul-awakened woman, ‘into foam and spray, destroying themselves upon the shore they love so well.”</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -300,19 +300,19 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>dictates</i>)—“Cortland, in Kate’s presence heard faintly the voice of caution. Thirty years had not cooled his ardor. It was in his power to bestow great gifts upon this girl. He still retained the beliefs that he had at twenty.” (<i>To Miss Lore, wearily</i>) I think that will be enough for the present.</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">dictates</i> “Cortland, in Kate’s presence heard faintly the voice of caution. Thirty years had not cooled his ardor. It was in his power to bestow great gifts upon this girl. He still retained the beliefs that he had at twenty.” <i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">To Miss Lore, wearily</i> I think that will be enough for the present.</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona">Miss Lore</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>wisely</i>)—Well, if he had the twenty that he believed he had, it might buy her a rather nice one.</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">wisely</i> Well, if he had the twenty that he believed he had, it might buy her a rather nice one.</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>faintly</i>)—The last sentence was my own. We will discontinue for the day, Miss Lore.</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">faintly</i> The last sentence was my own. We will discontinue for the day, Miss Lore.</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
@ -324,18 +324,18 @@
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Penne</td>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>helpless under the spell</i>)—If you will be so good.</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">helpless under the spell</i> If you will be so good.</p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr>
|
||||
<td/>
|
||||
<td>
|
||||
<p>(<i>Exit</i> Miss Lore.)</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Exit <span epub:type="z3998:persona">Miss Lore</span>.</i></p>
|
||||
</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
</table>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<b>ASBESTOS CURTAIN</b>
|
||||
<b>Asbestos Curtain</b>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,93 +8,97 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="the-higher-pragmatism" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">The Higher Pragmatism</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">I</h3>
|
||||
<p>Where to go for wisdom has become a question of serious import. The ancients are discredited; Plato is boiler-plate; Aristotle is tottering; Marcus Aurelius is reeling; Æsop has been copyrighted by Indiana; Solomon is too solemn; you couldn’t get anything out of Epictetus with a pick.</p>
|
||||
<p>The ant, which for many years served as a model of intelligence and industry in the school-readers, has been proven to be a doddering idiot and a waster of time and effort. The owl to-day is hooted at. Chautauqua conventions have abandoned culture and adopted diabolo. Graybeards give glowing testimonials to the venders of patent hair-restorers. There are typographical errors in the almanacs published by the daily newspapers. College professors have become—</p>
|
||||
<p>But there shall be no personalities.</p>
|
||||
<p>To sit in classes, to delve into the encyclopedia or the past-performances page, will not make us wise. As the poet says, “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.” Wisdom is dew, which, while we know it not, soaks into us, refreshes us, and makes us grow. Knowledge is a strong stream of water turned on us through a hose. It disturbs our roots.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then, let us rather gather wisdom. But how to do so requires knowledge. If we know a thing, we know it; but very often we are not wise to it that we are wise, and—</p>
|
||||
<p>But let’s go on with the story.</p>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">II</h3>
|
||||
<p>Once upon a time I found a ten-cent magazine lying on a bench in a little city park. Anyhow, that was the amount he asked me for when I sat on the bench next to him. He was a musty, dingy, and tattered magazine, with some queer stories bound in him, I was sure. He turned out to be a scrap-book.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am a newspaper reporter,” I said to him, to try him. “I have been detailed to write up some of the experiences of the unfortunate ones who spend their evenings in this park. May I ask you to what you attribute your downfall in—”</p>
|
||||
<p>I was interrupted by a laugh from my purchase—a laugh so rusty and unpractised that I was sure it had been his first for many a day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, no, no,” said he. “You ain’t a reporter. Reporters don’t talk that way. They pretend to be one of us, and say they’ve just got in on the blind baggage from <abbr>St.</abbr> Louis. I can tell a reporter on sight. Us park bums get to be fine judges of human nature. We sit here all day and watch the people go by. I can size up anybody who walks past my bench in a way that would surprise you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well,” I said, “go on and tell me. How do you size me up?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I should say,” said the student of human nature with unpardonable hesitation, “that you was, say, in the contracting business—or maybe worked in a store—or was a sign-painter. You stopped in the park to finish your cigar, and thought you’d get a little free monologue out of me. Still, you might be a plasterer or a lawyer—it’s getting kind of dark, you see. And your wife won’t let you smoke at home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I frowned gloomily.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But, judging again,” went on the reader of men, “I’d say you ain’t got a wife.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No,” said I, rising restlessly. “No, no, no, I ain’t. But I <em>will</em> have, by the arrows of Cupid! That is, if—”</p>
|
||||
<p>My voice must have trailed away and muffled itself in uncertainty and despair.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I see you have a story yourself,” said the dusty vagrant—impudently, it seemed to me. “Suppose you take your dime back and spin your yarn for me. I’m interested myself in the ups and downs of unfortunate ones who spend their evenings in the park.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Somehow, that amused me. I looked at the frowsy derelict with more interest. I did have a story. Why not tell it to him? I had told none of my friends. I had always been a reserved and bottled-up man. It was psychical timidity or sensitiveness—perhaps both. And I smiled to myself in wonder when I felt an impulse to confide in this stranger and vagabond.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jack,” said I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mack,” said he.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mack,” said I, “I’ll tell you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you want the dime back in advance?” said he.</p>
|
||||
<p>I handed him a dollar.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The dime,” said I, “was the price of listening to <em>your</em> story.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Right on the point of the jaw,” said he. “Go on.”</p>
|
||||
<p>And then, incredible as it may seem to the lovers in the world who confide their sorrows only to the night wind and the gibbous moon, I laid bare my secret to that wreck of all things that you would have supposed to be in sympathy with love.</p>
|
||||
<p>I told him of the days and weeks and months that I had spent in adoring Mildred Telfair. I spoke of my despair, my grievous days and wakeful nights, my dwindling hopes and distress of mind. I even pictured to this night-prowler her beauty and dignity, the great sway she had in society, and the magnificence of her life as the elder daughter of an ancient race whose pride overbalanced the dollars of the city’s millionaires.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why don’t you cop the lady out?” asked Mack, bringing me down to earth and dialect again.</p>
|
||||
<p>I explained to him that my worth was so small, my income so minute, and my fears so large that I hadn’t the courage to speak to her of my worship. I told him that in her presence I could only blush and stammer, and that she looked upon me with a wonderful, maddening smile of amusement.</p>
|
||||
<p>“She kind of moves in the professional class, don’t she?” asked Mack.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The Telfair family—” I began, haughtily.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I mean professional beauty,” said my hearer.</p>
|
||||
<p>“She is greatly and widely admired,” I answered, cautiously.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Any sisters?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“One.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You know any more girls?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, several,” I answered. “And a few others.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say,” said Mack, “tell me one thing—can you hand out the dope to other girls? Can you chin ’em and make matinée eyes at ’em and squeeze ’em? You know what I mean. You’re just shy when it comes to this particular dame—the professional beauty—ain’t that right?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“In a way you have outlined the situation with approximate truth,” I admitted.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought so,” said Mack, grimly. “Now, that reminds me of my own case. I’ll tell you about it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I was indignant, but concealed it. What was this loafer’s case or anybody’s case compared with mine? Besides, I had given him a dollar and ten cents.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Feel my muscle,” said my companion, suddenly, flexing his biceps. I did so mechanically. The fellows in gyms are always asking you to do that. His arm was as hard as cast-iron.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Four years ago,” said Mack, “I could lick any man in New York outside of the professional ring. Your case and mine is just the same. I come from the West Side—between Thirtieth and Fourteenth—I won’t give the number on the door. I was a scrapper when I was ten, and when I was twenty no amateur in the city could stand up four rounds with me. ‘S a fact. You know Bill McCarty? No? He managed the smokers for some of them swell clubs. Well, I knocked out everything Bill brought up before me. I was a middle-weight, but could train down to a welter when necessary. I boxed all over the West Side at bouts and benefits and private entertainments, and was never put out once.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But, say, the first time I put my foot in the ring with a professional I was no more than a canned lobster. I dunno how it was—I seemed to lose heart. I guess I got too much imagination. There was a formality and publicness about it that kind of weakened my nerve. I never won a fight in the ring. Light-weights and all kinds of scrubs used to sign up with my manager and then walk up and tap me on the wrist and see me fall. The minute I seen the crowd and a lot of gents in evening clothes down in front, and seen a professional come inside the ropes, I got as weak as ginger-ale.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course, it wasn’t long till I couldn’t get no backers, and I didn’t have any more chances to fight a professional—or many amateurs, either. But lemme tell you—I was as good as most men inside the ring or out. It was just that dumb, dead feeling I had when I was up against a regular that always done me up.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, sir, after I had got out of the business, I got a mighty grouch on. I used to go round town licking private citizens and all kinds of unprofessionals just to please myself. I’d lick cops in dark streets and car-conductors and cab-drivers and draymen whenever I could start a row with ’em. It didn’t make any difference how big they were, or how much science they had, I got away with ’em. If I’d only just have had the confidence in the ring that I had beating up the best men outside of it, I’d be wearing black pearls and heliotrope silk socks to-day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One evening I was walking along near the Bowery, thinking about things, when along comes a slumming-party. About six or seven they was, all in swallowtails, and these silk hats that don’t shine. One of the gang kind of shoves me off the sidewalk. I hadn’t had a scrap in three days, and I just says, ‘De-light-ed!’ and hits him back of the ear.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, we had it. That Johnnie put up as decent a little fight as you’d want to see in the moving pictures. It was on a side street, and no cops around. The other guy had a lot of science, but it only took me about six minutes to lay him out.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Some of the swallowtails dragged him up against some steps and began to fan him. Another one of ’em comes over to me and says:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Young man, do you know what you’ve done?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, beat it,’ says I. ‘I’ve done nothing but a little punching-bag work. Take Freddy back to Yale and tell him to quit studying sociology on the wrong side of the sidewalk.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘My good fellow,’ says he, ‘I don’t know who you are, but I’d like to. You’ve knocked out Reddy Burns, the champion middle-weight of the world! He came to New York yesterday, to try to get a match on with Jim Jeffries. If you—’</p>
|
||||
<p>“But when I come out of my faint I was laying on the floor in a drug-store saturated with aromatic spirits of ammonia. If I’d known that was Reddy Burns, I’d have got down in the gutter and crawled past him instead of handing him one like I did. Why, if I’d ever been in a ring and seen him climbing over the ropes, I’d have been all to the sal-volatile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“So that’s what imagination does,” concluded Mack. “And, as I said, your case and mine is simultaneous. You’ll never win out. You can’t go up against the professionals. I tell you, it’s a park bench for yours in this romance business.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mack, the pessimist, laughed harshly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m afraid I don’t see the parallel,” I said, coldly. “I have only a very slight acquaintance with the prize-ring.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The derelict touched my sleeve with his forefinger, for emphasis, as he explained his parable.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Every man,” said he, with some dignity, “has got his lamps on something that looks good to him. With you, it’s this dame that you’re afraid to say your say to. With me, it was to win out in the ring. Well, you’ll lose just like I did.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why do you think I shall lose?” I asked warmly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Cause,” said he, “you’re afraid to go in the ring. You dassen’t stand up before a professional. Your case and mine is just the same. You’re a amateur; and that means that you’d better keep outside of the ropes.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, I must be going,” I said, rising and looking with elaborate care at my watch.</p>
|
||||
<p>When I was twenty feet away the park-bencher called to me.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Much obliged for the dollar,” he said. “And for the dime. But you’ll never get ‘er. You’re in the amateur class.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Serves you right,” I said to myself, “for hobnobbing with a tramp. His impudence!”</p>
|
||||
<p>But, as I walked, his words seemed to repeat themselves over and over again in my brain. I think I even grew angry at the man.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll show him!” I finally said, aloud. “I’ll show him that I can fight Reddy Burns, too—even knowing who he is.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I hurried to a telephone-booth and rang up the Telfair residence.</p>
|
||||
<p>A soft, sweet voice answered. Didn’t I know that voice? My hand holding the receiver shook.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is that <em>you</em>?” said I, employing the foolish words that form the vocabulary of every talker through the telephone.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, this is I,” came back the answer in the low, clear-cut tones that are an inheritance of the Telfairs. “Who is it, please?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s me,” said I, less ungrammatically than egotistically. “It’s me, and I’ve got a few things that I want to say to you right now and immediately and straight to the point.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<em>Dear</em> me,” said the voice. “Oh, it’s you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Arden!”</p>
|
||||
<p>I wondered if any accent on the first word was intended; Mildred was fine at saying things that you had to study out afterward.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” said I. “I hope so. And now to come down to brass tacks.” I thought that rather a vernacularism, if there is such a word, as soon as I had said it; but I didn’t stop to apologize. “You know, of course, that I love you, and that I have been in that idiotic state for a long time. I don’t want any more foolishness about it—that is, I mean I want an answer from you right now. Will you marry me or not? Hold the wire, please. Keep out, Central. Hello, hello! Will you, or will you <em>not</em>?”</p>
|
||||
<p>That was just the uppercut for Reddy Burns’ chin. The answer came back:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, Phil, dear, of course I will! I didn’t know that you—that is, you never said—oh, come up to the house, please—I can’t say what I want to over the ‘phone. You are so importunate. But please come up to the house, won’t you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Would I?</p>
|
||||
<p>I rang the bell of the Telfair house violently. Some sort of a human came to the door and shooed me into the drawing-room.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, well,” said I to myself, looking at the ceiling, “any one can learn from any one. That was a pretty good philosophy of Mack’s, anyhow. He didn’t take advantage of his experience, but I get the benefit of it. If you want to get into the professional class, you’ve got to—”</p>
|
||||
<p>I stopped thinking then. Some one was coming down the stairs. My knees began to shake. I knew then how Mack had felt when a professional began to climb over the ropes.</p>
|
||||
<p>I looked around foolishly for a door or a window by which I might escape. If it had been any other girl approaching, I mightn’t have—</p>
|
||||
<p>But just then the door opened, and Bess, Mildred’s younger sister, came in. I’d never seen her look so much like a glorified angel. She walked straight tip to me, and—and—</p>
|
||||
<p>I’d never noticed before what perfectly wonderful eyes and hair Elizabeth Telfair had.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Phil,” she said, in the Telfair, sweet, thrilling tones, “why didn’t you tell me about it before? I thought it was sister you wanted all the time, until you telephoned to me a few minutes ago!”</p>
|
||||
<p>I suppose Mack and I always will be hopeless amateurs. But, as the thing has turned out in my case, I’m mighty glad of it.</p>
|
||||
<section id="the-higher-pragmatism-1" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">I</h3>
|
||||
<p>Where to go for wisdom has become a question of serious import. The ancients are discredited; Plato is boiler-plate; Aristotle is tottering; Marcus Aurelius is reeling; Æsop has been copyrighted by Indiana; Solomon is too solemn; you couldn’t get anything out of Epictetus with a pick.</p>
|
||||
<p>The ant, which for many years served as a model of intelligence and industry in the school-readers, has been proven to be a doddering idiot and a waster of time and effort. The owl to-day is hooted at. Chautauqua conventions have abandoned culture and adopted diabolo. Graybeards give glowing testimonials to the venders of patent hair-restorers. There are typographical errors in the almanacs published by the daily newspapers. College professors have become—</p>
|
||||
<p>But there shall be no personalities.</p>
|
||||
<p>To sit in classes, to delve into the encyclopedia or the past-performances page, will not make us wise. As the poet says, “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.” Wisdom is dew, which, while we know it not, soaks into us, refreshes us, and makes us grow. Knowledge is a strong stream of water turned on us through a hose. It disturbs our roots.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then, let us rather gather wisdom. But how to do so requires knowledge. If we know a thing, we know it; but very often we are not wise to it that we are wise, and—</p>
|
||||
<p>But let’s go on with the story.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
<section id="the-higher-pragmatism-2" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">II</h3>
|
||||
<p>Once upon a time I found a ten-cent magazine lying on a bench in a little city park. Anyhow, that was the amount he asked me for when I sat on the bench next to him. He was a musty, dingy, and tattered magazine, with some queer stories bound in him, I was sure. He turned out to be a scrap-book.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am a newspaper reporter,” I said to him, to try him. “I have been detailed to write up some of the experiences of the unfortunate ones who spend their evenings in this park. May I ask you to what you attribute your downfall in—”</p>
|
||||
<p>I was interrupted by a laugh from my purchase—a laugh so rusty and unpractised that I was sure it had been his first for many a day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, no, no,” said he. “You ain’t a reporter. Reporters don’t talk that way. They pretend to be one of us, and say they’ve just got in on the blind baggage from <abbr>St.</abbr> Louis. I can tell a reporter on sight. Us park bums get to be fine judges of human nature. We sit here all day and watch the people go by. I can size up anybody who walks past my bench in a way that would surprise you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well,” I said, “go on and tell me. How do you size me up?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I should say,” said the student of human nature with unpardonable hesitation, “that you was, say, in the contracting business—or maybe worked in a store—or was a sign-painter. You stopped in the park to finish your cigar, and thought you’d get a little free monologue out of me. Still, you might be a plasterer or a lawyer—it’s getting kind of dark, you see. And your wife won’t let you smoke at home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I frowned gloomily.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But, judging again,” went on the reader of men, “I’d say you ain’t got a wife.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No,” said I, rising restlessly. “No, no, no, I ain’t. But I <em>will</em> have, by the arrows of Cupid! That is, if—”</p>
|
||||
<p>My voice must have trailed away and muffled itself in uncertainty and despair.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I see you have a story yourself,” said the dusty vagrant—impudently, it seemed to me. “Suppose you take your dime back and spin your yarn for me. I’m interested myself in the ups and downs of unfortunate ones who spend their evenings in the park.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Somehow, that amused me. I looked at the frowsy derelict with more interest. I did have a story. Why not tell it to him? I had told none of my friends. I had always been a reserved and bottled-up man. It was psychical timidity or sensitiveness—perhaps both. And I smiled to myself in wonder when I felt an impulse to confide in this stranger and vagabond.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jack,” said I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mack,” said he.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mack,” said I, “I’ll tell you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you want the dime back in advance?” said he.</p>
|
||||
<p>I handed him a dollar.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The dime,” said I, “was the price of listening to <em>your</em> story.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Right on the point of the jaw,” said he. “Go on.”</p>
|
||||
<p>And then, incredible as it may seem to the lovers in the world who confide their sorrows only to the night wind and the gibbous moon, I laid bare my secret to that wreck of all things that you would have supposed to be in sympathy with love.</p>
|
||||
<p>I told him of the days and weeks and months that I had spent in adoring Mildred Telfair. I spoke of my despair, my grievous days and wakeful nights, my dwindling hopes and distress of mind. I even pictured to this night-prowler her beauty and dignity, the great sway she had in society, and the magnificence of her life as the elder daughter of an ancient race whose pride overbalanced the dollars of the city’s millionaires.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why don’t you cop the lady out?” asked Mack, bringing me down to earth and dialect again.</p>
|
||||
<p>I explained to him that my worth was so small, my income so minute, and my fears so large that I hadn’t the courage to speak to her of my worship. I told him that in her presence I could only blush and stammer, and that she looked upon me with a wonderful, maddening smile of amusement.</p>
|
||||
<p>“She kind of moves in the professional class, don’t she?” asked Mack.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The Telfair family—” I began, haughtily.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I mean professional beauty,” said my hearer.</p>
|
||||
<p>“She is greatly and widely admired,” I answered, cautiously.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Any sisters?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“One.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You know any more girls?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, several,” I answered. “And a few others.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say,” said Mack, “tell me one thing—can you hand out the dope to other girls? Can you chin ’em and make matinée eyes at ’em and squeeze ’em? You know what I mean. You’re just shy when it comes to this particular dame—the professional beauty—ain’t that right?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“In a way you have outlined the situation with approximate truth,” I admitted.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought so,” said Mack, grimly. “Now, that reminds me of my own case. I’ll tell you about it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I was indignant, but concealed it. What was this loafer’s case or anybody’s case compared with mine? Besides, I had given him a dollar and ten cents.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Feel my muscle,” said my companion, suddenly, flexing his biceps. I did so mechanically. The fellows in gyms are always asking you to do that. His arm was as hard as cast-iron.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Four years ago,” said Mack, “I could lick any man in New York outside of the professional ring. Your case and mine is just the same. I come from the West Side—between Thirtieth and Fourteenth—I won’t give the number on the door. I was a scrapper when I was ten, and when I was twenty no amateur in the city could stand up four rounds with me. ‘S a fact. You know Bill McCarty? No? He managed the smokers for some of them swell clubs. Well, I knocked out everything Bill brought up before me. I was a middle-weight, but could train down to a welter when necessary. I boxed all over the West Side at bouts and benefits and private entertainments, and was never put out once.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But, say, the first time I put my foot in the ring with a professional I was no more than a canned lobster. I dunno how it was—I seemed to lose heart. I guess I got too much imagination. There was a formality and publicness about it that kind of weakened my nerve. I never won a fight in the ring. Light-weights and all kinds of scrubs used to sign up with my manager and then walk up and tap me on the wrist and see me fall. The minute I seen the crowd and a lot of gents in evening clothes down in front, and seen a professional come inside the ropes, I got as weak as ginger-ale.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course, it wasn’t long till I couldn’t get no backers, and I didn’t have any more chances to fight a professional—or many amateurs, either. But lemme tell you—I was as good as most men inside the ring or out. It was just that dumb, dead feeling I had when I was up against a regular that always done me up.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, sir, after I had got out of the business, I got a mighty grouch on. I used to go round town licking private citizens and all kinds of unprofessionals just to please myself. I’d lick cops in dark streets and car-conductors and cab-drivers and draymen whenever I could start a row with ’em. It didn’t make any difference how big they were, or how much science they had, I got away with ’em. If I’d only just have had the confidence in the ring that I had beating up the best men outside of it, I’d be wearing black pearls and heliotrope silk socks to-day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One evening I was walking along near the Bowery, thinking about things, when along comes a slumming-party. About six or seven they was, all in swallowtails, and these silk hats that don’t shine. One of the gang kind of shoves me off the sidewalk. I hadn’t had a scrap in three days, and I just says, ‘De-light-ed!’ and hits him back of the ear.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, we had it. That Johnnie put up as decent a little fight as you’d want to see in the moving pictures. It was on a side street, and no cops around. The other guy had a lot of science, but it only took me about six minutes to lay him out.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Some of the swallowtails dragged him up against some steps and began to fan him. Another one of ’em comes over to me and says:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Young man, do you know what you’ve done?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, beat it,’ says I. ‘I’ve done nothing but a little punching-bag work. Take Freddy back to Yale and tell him to quit studying sociology on the wrong side of the sidewalk.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘My good fellow,’ says he, ‘I don’t know who you are, but I’d like to. You’ve knocked out Reddy Burns, the champion middle-weight of the world! He came to New York yesterday, to try to get a match on with Jim Jeffries. If you—’</p>
|
||||
<p>“But when I come out of my faint I was laying on the floor in a drug-store saturated with aromatic spirits of ammonia. If I’d known that was Reddy Burns, I’d have got down in the gutter and crawled past him instead of handing him one like I did. Why, if I’d ever been in a ring and seen him climbing over the ropes, I’d have been all to the sal-volatile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“So that’s what imagination does,” concluded Mack. “And, as I said, your case and mine is simultaneous. You’ll never win out. You can’t go up against the professionals. I tell you, it’s a park bench for yours in this romance business.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mack, the pessimist, laughed harshly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m afraid I don’t see the parallel,” I said, coldly. “I have only a very slight acquaintance with the prize-ring.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The derelict touched my sleeve with his forefinger, for emphasis, as he explained his parable.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Every man,” said he, with some dignity, “has got his lamps on something that looks good to him. With you, it’s this dame that you’re afraid to say your say to. With me, it was to win out in the ring. Well, you’ll lose just like I did.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why do you think I shall lose?” I asked warmly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Cause,” said he, “you’re afraid to go in the ring. You dassen’t stand up before a professional. Your case and mine is just the same. You’re a amateur; and that means that you’d better keep outside of the ropes.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, I must be going,” I said, rising and looking with elaborate care at my watch.</p>
|
||||
<p>When I was twenty feet away the park-bencher called to me.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Much obliged for the dollar,” he said. “And for the dime. But you’ll never get ‘er. You’re in the amateur class.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Serves you right,” I said to myself, “for hobnobbing with a tramp. His impudence!”</p>
|
||||
<p>But, as I walked, his words seemed to repeat themselves over and over again in my brain. I think I even grew angry at the man.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll show him!” I finally said, aloud. “I’ll show him that I can fight Reddy Burns, too—even knowing who he is.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I hurried to a telephone-booth and rang up the Telfair residence.</p>
|
||||
<p>A soft, sweet voice answered. Didn’t I know that voice? My hand holding the receiver shook.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is that <em>you</em>?” said I, employing the foolish words that form the vocabulary of every talker through the telephone.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, this is I,” came back the answer in the low, clear-cut tones that are an inheritance of the Telfairs. “Who is it, please?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s me,” said I, less ungrammatically than egotistically. “It’s me, and I’ve got a few things that I want to say to you right now and immediately and straight to the point.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<em>Dear</em> me,” said the voice. “Oh, it’s you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Arden!”</p>
|
||||
<p>I wondered if any accent on the first word was intended; Mildred was fine at saying things that you had to study out afterward.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” said I. “I hope so. And now to come down to brass tacks.” I thought that rather a vernacularism, if there is such a word, as soon as I had said it; but I didn’t stop to apologize. “You know, of course, that I love you, and that I have been in that idiotic state for a long time. I don’t want any more foolishness about it—that is, I mean I want an answer from you right now. Will you marry me or not? Hold the wire, please. Keep out, Central. Hello, hello! Will you, or will you <em>not</em>?”</p>
|
||||
<p>That was just the uppercut for Reddy Burns’ chin. The answer came back:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, Phil, dear, of course I will! I didn’t know that you—that is, you never said—oh, come up to the house, please—I can’t say what I want to over the ‘phone. You are so importunate. But please come up to the house, won’t you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Would I?</p>
|
||||
<p>I rang the bell of the Telfair house violently. Some sort of a human came to the door and shooed me into the drawing-room.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, well,” said I to myself, looking at the ceiling, “any one can learn from any one. That was a pretty good philosophy of Mack’s, anyhow. He didn’t take advantage of his experience, but I get the benefit of it. If you want to get into the professional class, you’ve got to—”</p>
|
||||
<p>I stopped thinking then. Some one was coming down the stairs. My knees began to shake. I knew then how Mack had felt when a professional began to climb over the ropes.</p>
|
||||
<p>I looked around foolishly for a door or a window by which I might escape. If it had been any other girl approaching, I mightn’t have—</p>
|
||||
<p>But just then the door opened, and Bess, Mildred’s younger sister, came in. I’d never seen her look so much like a glorified angel. She walked straight tip to me, and—and—</p>
|
||||
<p>I’d never noticed before what perfectly wonderful eyes and hair Elizabeth Telfair had.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Phil,” she said, in the Telfair, sweet, thrilling tones, “why didn’t you tell me about it before? I thought it was sister you wanted all the time, until you telephoned to me a few minutes ago!”</p>
|
||||
<p>I suppose Mack and I always will be hopeless amateurs. But, as the thing has turned out in my case, I’m mighty glad of it.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
2635
src/epub/toc.xhtml
2635
src/epub/toc.xhtml
File diff suppressed because it is too large
Load Diff
Loading…
Reference in New Issue
Block a user