[Editorial] any one -> anyone
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<p>Ileen was a girl of ideas. She was destined for higher things (if there can be anything higher) than taking in dollars all day through a barbed-wire wicket. She had read and listened and thought. Her looks would have formed a career for a less ambitious girl; but, rising superior to mere beauty, she must establish something in the nature of a salon—the only one in Paloma.</p>
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<p>“Don’t you think that Shakespeare was a great writer?” she would ask, with such a pretty little knit of her arched brows that the late Ignatius Donnelly, himself, had he seen it, could scarcely have saved his Bacon.</p>
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<p>Ileen was of the opinion, also, that Boston is more cultured than Chicago; that Rosa Bonheur was one of the greatest of women painters; that Westerners are more spontaneous and openhearted than Easterners; that London must be a very foggy city, and that California must be quite lovely in the springtime. And of many other opinions indicating a keeping up with the world’s best thought.</p>
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<p>These, however, were but gleaned from hearsay and evidence: Ileen had theories of her own. One, in particular, she disseminated to us untiringly. Flattery she detested. Frankness and honesty of speech and action, she declared, were the chief mental ornaments of man and woman. If ever she could like any one, it would be for those qualities.</p>
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<p>These, however, were but gleaned from hearsay and evidence: Ileen had theories of her own. One, in particular, she disseminated to us untiringly. Flattery she detested. Frankness and honesty of speech and action, she declared, were the chief mental ornaments of man and woman. If ever she could like anyone, it would be for those qualities.</p>
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<p>“I’m awfully weary,” she said, one evening, when we three musketeers of the mesquite were in the little parlor, “of having compliments on my looks paid to me. I know I’m not beautiful.”</p>
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<p>(Bud Cunningham told me afterward that it was all he could do to keep from calling her a liar when she said that.)</p>
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<p>“I’m only a little Middle-Western girl,” went on Ileen, “who just wants to be simple and neat, and tries to help her father make a humble living.”</p>
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<p>(Old Man Hinkle was shipping a thousand silver dollars a month, clear profit, to a bank in San Antonio.)</p>
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<p>Bud twisted around in his chair and bent the rim of his hat, from which he could never be persuaded to separate. He did not know whether she wanted what she said she wanted or what she knew she deserved. Many a wiser man has hesitated at deciding. Bud decided.</p>
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<p>“Why—ah, Miss Ileen, beauty, as you might say, ain’t everything. Not sayin’ that you haven’t your share of good looks, I always admired more than anything else about you the nice, kind way you treat your ma and pa. Any one what’s good to their parents and is a kind of homebody don’t specially need to be too pretty.”</p>
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<p>“Why—ah, Miss Ileen, beauty, as you might say, ain’t everything. Not sayin’ that you haven’t your share of good looks, I always admired more than anything else about you the nice, kind way you treat your ma and pa. Anyone what’s good to their parents and is a kind of homebody don’t specially need to be too pretty.”</p>
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<p>Ileen gave him one of her sweetest smiles. “Thank you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cunningham,” she said. “I consider that one of the finest compliments I’ve had in a long time. I’d so much rather hear you say that than to hear you talk about my eyes and hair. I’m glad you believe me when I say I don’t like flattery.”</p>
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<p>Our cue was there for us. Bud had made a good guess. You couldn’t lose Jacks. He chimed in next.</p>
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<p>“Sure thing, Miss Ileen,” he said; “the good-lookers don’t always win out. Now, you ain’t bad looking, of course—but that’s nix-cum-rous. I knew a girl once in Dubuque with a face like a coconut, who could skin the cat twice on a horizontal bar without changing hands. Now, a girl might have the California peach crop mashed to a marmalade and not be able to do that. I’ve seen—er—worse lookers than <em>you</em>, Miss Ileen; but what I like about you is the business way you’ve got of doing things. Cool and wise—that’s the winning way for a girl. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hinkle told me the other day you’d never taken in a lead silver dollar or a plugged one since you’ve been on the job. Now, that’s the stuff for a girl—that’s what catches me.”</p>
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<p>Jacks got his smile, too.</p>
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<p>“Thank you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jacks,” said Ileen. “If you only knew how I appreciate any one’s being candid and not a flatterer! I get so tired of people telling me I’m pretty. I think it is the loveliest thing to have friends who tell you the truth.”</p>
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<p>“Thank you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jacks,” said Ileen. “If you only knew how I appreciate anyone’s being candid and not a flatterer! I get so tired of people telling me I’m pretty. I think it is the loveliest thing to have friends who tell you the truth.”</p>
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<p>Then I thought I saw an expectant look on Ileen’s face as she glanced toward me. I had a wild, sudden impulse to dare fate, and tell her of all the beautiful handiwork of the Great Artificer she was the most exquisite—that she was a flawless pearl gleaming pure and serene in a setting of black mud and emerald prairies—that she was—a—a corker; and as for mine, I cared not if she were as cruel as a serpent’s tooth to her fond parents, or if she couldn’t tell a plugged dollar from a bridle buckle, if I might sing, chant, praise, glorify, and worship her peerless and wonderful beauty.</p>
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<p>But I refrained. I feared the fate of a flatterer. I had witnessed her delight at the crafty and discreet words of Bud and Jacks. No! Miss Hinkle was not one to be beguiled by the plated-silver tongue of a flatterer. So I joined the ranks of the candid and honest. At once I became mendacious and didactic.</p>
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<p>“In all ages, Miss Hinkle,” said I, “in spite of the poetry and romance of each, intellect in woman has been admired more than beauty. Even in Cleopatra, herself, men found more charm in her queenly mind than in her looks.”</p>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<p>“ ‘I never had anyone talk like this to me before, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pescud,’ says she. ‘What did you say your name is—John?’</p>
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<p>“ ‘John <abbr class="name">A.</abbr>,’ says I.</p>
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<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>
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<p>“ ‘How did you know?’ I asked.</p>
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<p>“How,” I asked, “have I imposed upon you?”</p>
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<p>“By your ignorance,” said he. “Twice I have discovered serious flaws in your plans that a common-school education should have enabled you to avoid. And,” he continued, “I have been put to expense that I could ill afford in pursuing this swindling quest. I am done with it.”</p>
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<p>I rose and pointed a large pewter spoon at him, fresh from the dishwater.</p>
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<p>“Goodloe Banks,” I said, “I care not one parboiled navy bean for your education. I always barely tolerated it in any one, and I despised it in you. What has your learning done for you? It is a curse to yourself and a bore to your friends. Away,” I said—“away with your watermarks and variations! They are nothing to me. They shall not deflect me from the quest.”</p>
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<p>“Goodloe Banks,” I said, “I care not one parboiled navy bean for your education. I always barely tolerated it in anyone, and I despised it in you. What has your learning done for you? It is a curse to yourself and a bore to your friends. Away,” I said—“away with your watermarks and variations! They are nothing to me. They shall not deflect me from the quest.”</p>
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<p>I pointed with my spoon across the river to a small mountain shaped like a packsaddle.</p>
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<p>“I am going to search that mountain,” I went on, “for the treasure. Decide now whether you are in it or not. If you wish to let a watermark or a variation shake your soul, you are no true adventurer. Decide.”</p>
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<p>A white cloud of dust began to rise far down the river road. It was the mail-wagon from Hesperus to Chico. Goodloe flagged it.</p>
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<p>As the farmer does his grounds,”</p>
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<p>that sad and melancholy old song that Irishmen always sing when they feel particularly jolly, his voice sounded plaintive and full of pathos.</p>
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<p>Kathleen was far too wise to chide him. She tried to be gay and cheerful, though the change in Fergus made her heart very sad. Again the next day, and once more the following day but one, did she see him with the lowbrowed tempter that had wrought the change.</p>
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<p>Day by day Fergus grew morose and pale. His once jolly and laughing face grew stern and thoughtful. He rarely spoke to any one, and once when <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Malley handed him a big schooner from a keg fresh from the brewery, he heaved such a deep and mournful sigh that the foam flew half across the room.</p>
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<p>Day by day Fergus grew morose and pale. His once jolly and laughing face grew stern and thoughtful. He rarely spoke to anyone, and once when <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Malley handed him a big schooner from a keg fresh from the brewery, he heaved such a deep and mournful sigh that the foam flew half across the room.</p>
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<p>“Kathleen,” said her papa one day, “what’s the matter wid that long-legged omadhaun Fergus? He looks like he was walking over his own grave.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, papa,” said Kathleen, bursting into tears, “I do not know, he seems to be full of bayou water.”</p>
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<p>Let us follow Fergus and the sinister stranger, and see what spell is upon our hero.</p>
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<p>“No, you don’t,” said North, emphatically. “You don’t spring that old one on me. I know you know better. Man, you ought to have gone up with us this summer. The Prestons are there, and Tom Volney and the Monroes and Lulu Stanford and the Miss Kennedy and her aunt that you liked so well.”</p>
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<p>“I never liked Miss Kennedy’s aunt,” I said.</p>
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<p>“I didn’t say you did,” said North. “We are having the greatest time we’ve ever had. The pickerel and trout are so ravenous that I believe they would swallow your hook with a Montana copper-mine prospectus fastened on it. And we’ve a couple of electric launches; and I’ll tell you what we do every night or two—we tow a rowboat behind each one with a big phonograph and a boy to change the discs in ’em. On the water, and twenty yards behind you, they are not so bad. And there are passably good roads through the woods where we go motoring. I shipped two cars up there. And the Pinecliff Inn is only three miles away. You know the Pinecliff. Some good people are there this season, and we run over to the dances twice a week. Can’t you go back with me for a week, old man?”</p>
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<p>I laughed. “Northy,” said I—“if I may be so familiar with a millionaire, because I hate both the names Spencer and Grenville—your invitation is meant kindly, but—the city in the summertime for me. Here, while the bourgeoisie is away, I can live as Nero lived—barring, thank heaven, the fiddling—while the city burns at ninety in the shade. The tropics and the zones wait upon me like handmaidens. I sit under Florida palms and eat pomegranates while Boreas himself, electrically conjured up, blows upon me his Arctic breath. As for trout, you know, yourself, that Jean, at Maurice’s, cooks them better than any one else in the world.”</p>
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<p>I laughed. “Northy,” said I—“if I may be so familiar with a millionaire, because I hate both the names Spencer and Grenville—your invitation is meant kindly, but—the city in the summertime for me. Here, while the bourgeoisie is away, I can live as Nero lived—barring, thank heaven, the fiddling—while the city burns at ninety in the shade. The tropics and the zones wait upon me like handmaidens. I sit under Florida palms and eat pomegranates while Boreas himself, electrically conjured up, blows upon me his Arctic breath. As for trout, you know, yourself, that Jean, at Maurice’s, cooks them better than anyone else in the world.”</p>
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<p>“Be advised,” said North. “My chef has pinched the blue ribbon from the lot. He lays some slices of bacon inside the trout, wraps it all in cornhusks—the husks of green corn, you know—buries them in hot ashes and covers them with live coals. We build fires on the bank of the lake and have fish suppers.”</p>
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<p>“I know,” said I. “And the servants bring down tables and chairs and damask cloths, and you eat with silver forks. I know the kind of camps that you millionaires have. And there are champagne pails set about, disgracing the wild flowers, and, no doubt, Madame Tetrazzini to sing in the boat pavilion after the trout.”</p>
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<p>“Oh no,” said North, concernedly, “we were never as bad as that. We did have a variety troupe up from the city three or four nights, but they weren’t stars by as far as light can travel in the same length of time. I always like a few home comforts even when I’m roughing it. But don’t tell me you prefer to stay in the city during summer. I don’t believe it. If you do, why did you spend your summers there for the last four years, even sneaking away from town on a night train, and refusing to tell your friends where this Arcadian village was?”</p>
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<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>
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<p>She made a motion as if to toss the letter across the table to Nevada.</p>
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<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>
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<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>
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<p>“Why, dear, you don’t want me to open Gilbert’s letter to you? It’s for you, and you wouldn’t wish anyone else to read it, of course!”</p>
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<p>Nevada raised her steady, calm, sapphire eyes from her gloves.</p>
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<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 tomorrow.”</p>
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<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>
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<p>“Not lately,” said Eve, absolutely unstaggered. “Don’t you think the applesauce 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>
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<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>
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<p>Barbara seemed to hesitate.</p>
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<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>
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<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 anyone else to know.”</p>
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<p>Nevada forgot her gloves for a moment.</p>
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<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>
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<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 anyone else oughtn’t to know, that is all the more reason why everybody should know it.”</p>
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<p>“Well,” said Barbara, “this is what it says: ‘Dearest Nevada—Come to my studio at twelve o’clock tonight. 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 upstairs 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>
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</section>
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<section id="schools-and-schools-4" epub:type="chapter">
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<p>“All right,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Simmons, “I paid for the beer.”</p>
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<p>The bartender pointed out the way through a little hallway, where they entered another door and found a very glib gentleman who persuaded them to buy tickets that admitted them upstairs. They ascended and found themselves in the family circle of a little theater. There were about twenty or thirty men and boys scattered about among the seats, and the performance seemed quite well under way. On the stage a very exaggerated Irishman was chasing a very exaggerated negro with an ax, while a soubrettish young lady dressed in a ruffle and blue tights stood upon a barrel and screamed something in a high, cracked voice.</p>
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<p/>
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<p>“I shouldn’t like it if there should happen to be any one down stairs that knows me,” said the captain. “Suppose we take one of these boxes.” They went into a little box, screened from view by soiled cheap lace curtains, containing four or five chairs and a little table with little rings all over it made by the bottoms of wet glasses.</p>
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<p>“I shouldn’t like it if there should happen to be anyone down stairs that knows me,” said the captain. “Suppose we take one of these boxes.” They went into a little box, screened from view by soiled cheap lace curtains, containing four or five chairs and a little table with little rings all over it made by the bottoms of wet glasses.</p>
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<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Simmons was delighted with the performance. He laughed unrestrainedly at the jokes of the comedian, and leaned half out of the box to applaud when the DeVere sisters did their song and dance and split specialty. Captain Clancy leaned back in his chair and hardly looked at the stage, but on his face was an expression of large content, and a tranquil smile. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Simmons kept the carpet bag in both hands all this time. Presently, while he was listening with apparent rapture to a topical song by Mile. Fanchon, the Parisian nightingale, he felt a hand laid on his shoulder. He turned about and beheld a vision that seemed to take away his breath. Two radiant beings in white, with blue ribbons, and showing quite a stretch of black ribbed stockings were in the box. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Simmons hugged his carpet bag to his breast and started up in embarrassed alarm.</p>
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<p>“Don’t shy, old man,” said one of them. “Sit down and buy some beer.”</p>
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<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Simmons seemed so full of blushes and perturbation for a while that he scarcely knew what he was doing, but Captain Clancy seemed so cool and easy, and began to chat so companionably with the ladies that he presently took courage, and the next quarter of an hour found the four seated opposite one another at the little table, and a colored waiter was kept busy bringing bottles of beer from the bar and carrying away empty glasses. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Simmons grew absolutely hilarious. He told funny stories about ranch life, and spoke quite boastingly about the gay times he had had in Kansas City during the three days he was there.</p>
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<p>Chloe gave no sign of bestowing her blithe affections upon either of us. But one day she let out to me an inkling of what she preferred in a man. It was tremendously interesting to me, but not illuminating as to its application. I had been tormenting her for the dozenth time with the statement and catalogue of my sentiments toward her.</p>
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<p>“Tommy,” said she, “I don’t want a man to show his love for me by leading an army against another country and blowing people off the earth with cannons.”</p>
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<p>“If you mean that the opposite way,” I answered, “as they say women do, I’ll see what I can do. The papers are full of this diplomatic row in Russia. My people know some big people in Washington who are right next to the army people, and I could get an artillery commission and—”</p>
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<p>“I’m not that way,” interrupted Chloe. “I mean what I say. It isn’t the big things that are done in the world, Tommy, that count with a woman. When the knights were riding abroad in their armor to slay dragons, many a stay-at-home page won a lonesome lady’s hand by being on the spot to pick up her glove and be quick with her cloak when the wind blew. The man I am to like best, whoever he shall be, must show his love in little ways. He must never forget, after hearing it once, that I do not like to have any one walk at my left side; that I detest bright-colored neckties; that I prefer to sit with my back to a light; that I like candied violets; that I must not be talked to when I am looking at the moonlight shining on water, and that I very, very often long for dates stuffed with English walnuts.”</p>
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<p>“I’m not that way,” interrupted Chloe. “I mean what I say. It isn’t the big things that are done in the world, Tommy, that count with a woman. When the knights were riding abroad in their armor to slay dragons, many a stay-at-home page won a lonesome lady’s hand by being on the spot to pick up her glove and be quick with her cloak when the wind blew. The man I am to like best, whoever he shall be, must show his love in little ways. He must never forget, after hearing it once, that I do not like to have anyone walk at my left side; that I detest bright-colored neckties; that I prefer to sit with my back to a light; that I like candied violets; that I must not be talked to when I am looking at the moonlight shining on water, and that I very, very often long for dates stuffed with English walnuts.”</p>
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<p>“Frivolity,” I said, with a frown. “Any well-trained servant would be equal to such details.”</p>
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<p>“And he must remember,” went on Chloe, to remind me of what I want when I do not know, myself, what I want.”</p>
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<p>“You’re rising in the scale,” I said. “What you seem to need is a first-class clairvoyant.”</p>
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<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>
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<p>Would I?</p>
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<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>
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<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>
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<p>“Oh, well,” said I to myself, looking at the ceiling, “anyone can learn from anyone. 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>
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<p>I stopped thinking then. Someone 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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<p>There was neither a potato nor an onion. Now, what kind of a beef-stew can you make out of simply beef? You can make oyster-soup without oysters, turtle-soup without turtles, coffeecake without coffee, but you can’t make beef-stew without potatoes and onions.</p>
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<p>But rib beef alone, in an emergency, can make an ordinary pine door look like a wrought-iron gambling-house portal to the wolf. With salt and pepper and a tablespoonful of flour (first well stirred in a little cold water) ’twill serve—’tis not so deep as a lobster à la Newburg nor so wide as a church festival doughnut; but ’twill serve.</p>
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<p>Hetty took her stewpan to the rear of the third-floor hall. According to the advertisements of the Vallambrosa there was running water to be found there. Between you and me and the water-meter, it only ambled or walked through the faucets; but technicalities have no place here. There was also a sink where housekeeping roomers often met to dump their coffee grounds and glare at one another’s kimonos.</p>
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<p>At this sink Hetty found a girl with heavy, gold-brown, artistic hair and plaintive eyes, washing two large “Irish” potatoes. Hetty knew the Vallambrosa as well as any one not owning “double hextra-magnifying eyes” could compass its mysteries. The kimonos were her encyclopedia, her “Who’s What?” her clearinghouse of news, of goers and comers. From a rose-pink kimono edged with Nile green she had learned that the girl with the potatoes was a miniature-painter living in a kind of attic—or “studio,” as they prefer to call it—on the top floor. Hetty was not certain in her mind what a miniature was; but it certainly wasn’t a house; because house-painters, although they wear splashy overalls and poke ladders in your face on the street, are known to indulge in a riotous profusion of food at home.</p>
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<p>At this sink Hetty found a girl with heavy, gold-brown, artistic hair and plaintive eyes, washing two large “Irish” potatoes. Hetty knew the Vallambrosa as well as anyone not owning “double hextra-magnifying eyes” could compass its mysteries. The kimonos were her encyclopedia, her “Who’s What?” her clearinghouse of news, of goers and comers. From a rose-pink kimono edged with Nile green she had learned that the girl with the potatoes was a miniature-painter living in a kind of attic—or “studio,” as they prefer to call it—on the top floor. Hetty was not certain in her mind what a miniature was; but it certainly wasn’t a house; because house-painters, although they wear splashy overalls and poke ladders in your face on the street, are known to indulge in a riotous profusion of food at home.</p>
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<p>The potato girl was quite slim and small, and handled her potatoes as an old bachelor uncle handles a baby who is cutting teeth. She had a dull shoemaker’s knife in her right hand, and she had begun to peel one of the potatoes with it.</p>
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<p>Hetty addressed her in the punctiliously formal tone of one who intends to be cheerfully familiar with you in the second round.</p>
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<p>“Beg pardon,” she said, “for butting into what’s not my business, but if you peel them potatoes you lose out. They’re new Bermudas. You want to scrape ’em. Lemme show you.”</p>
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@ -35,7 +35,7 @@
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<p>“Hundreds of ’em,” said the hermit, “when they’ve found the right one.”</p>
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<p>“But they’re hermits,” said the youngest and beautifulest, “because they’ve lost the right one, aren’t they?”</p>
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<p>“Because they think they have,” answered the recluse, fatuously. “Wisdom comes to one in a mountain cave as well as to one in the world of ‘swells,’ as I believe they are called in the argot.”</p>
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<p>“When one of the ‘swells’ brings it to them,” said Miss Trenholme. “And my folks are swells. That’s the trouble. But there are so many swells at the seashore in the summertime that we hardly amount to more than ripples. So we’ve had to put all our money into river and harbor appropriations. We were all girls, you know. There were four of us. I’m the only surviving one. The others have been married off. All to money. Mamma is so proud of my sisters. They send her the loveliest pen-wipers and art calendars every Christmas. I’m the only one on the market now. I’m forbidden to look at any one who hasn’t money.”</p>
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<p>“When one of the ‘swells’ brings it to them,” said Miss Trenholme. “And my folks are swells. That’s the trouble. But there are so many swells at the seashore in the summertime that we hardly amount to more than ripples. So we’ve had to put all our money into river and harbor appropriations. We were all girls, you know. There were four of us. I’m the only surviving one. The others have been married off. All to money. Mamma is so proud of my sisters. They send her the loveliest pen-wipers and art calendars every Christmas. I’m the only one on the market now. I’m forbidden to look at anyone who hasn’t money.”</p>
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<p>“But—” began the hermit.</p>
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<p>“But, oh,” said the beautifulest, “of course hermits have great pots of gold and doubloons buried somewhere near three great oak-trees. They all have.”</p>
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<p>“I have not,” said the hermit, regretfully.</p>
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