章节正文
coat-pocket a handful of new bills of the Second National Bank of
Espinosa City. 'Your regular engraved Tuesdays-and-Fridays visiting-
card wouldn't have a louder voice in proclaiming your indemnity than
this here currency. You can get up now and prepare to go with us and
expatriate your sins.
"H. Ogden gets up and fixes his necktie. He says no more after they
have taken the money off of him.
"'A well-greased idea,' says the sheriff captain, admiring, 'to slip
off down here and buy a little sheep-ranch where the hand of man is
seldom heard. It was the slickest hide-out I ever see,' says the
captain.
"So one of the men goes to the shearing-pen and hunts up the other
herder, a Mexican they call John Sallies, and he saddles Ogden's
horse, and the sheriffs all ride tip close around him with their guns
in hand, ready to take their prisoner to town.
"Before starting, Ogden puts the ranch in John Sallies' hands and
gives him orders about the shearing and where to graze the sheep, just
as if he intended to be back in a few days. And a couple of hours
afterward one Percival Saint Clair, an ex-sheep-herder of the Rancho
Chiquito, might have been seen, with a hundred and nine dollars--wages
and blood-money--in his pocket, riding south on another horse
belonging to said ranch."
The red-faced man paused and listened. The whistle of a coming
freight-train sounded far away among the low hills.
The fat, seedy man at his side sniffed, and shook his frowzy head
slowly and disparagingly.
"What is it, Snipy?" asked the other. "Got the blues again?"
"No, I ain't" said the seedy one, sniffing again. "But I don't like
your talk. You and me have been friends, off and on, for fifteen
year; and I never yet knew or heard of you giving anybody up to the
law--not no one. And here was a man whose saleratus you had et and at
whose table you had played games of cards--if casino can be so called.
And yet you inform him to the law and take money for it. It never was
like you, I say."
"This H. Ogden," resumed the red-faced man, "through a lawyer, proved
himself free by alibis and other legal terminalities, as I so heard
afterward. He never suffered no harm. He did me favors, and I hated
to hand him over."
"How about the bills they found in his pocket?" asked the seedy man.
"I put 'em there," said the red-faced man, "while he was asleep, when
I saw the posse riding up. I was Black Bill. Look out, Snipy, here
she comes! We'll board her on the bumpers when she takes water at the
tank."
SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLS
I
Old Jerome Warren lived in a hundred-thousand-dollar house at 35 East
Fifty-Soforth Street. He was a down-town 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.
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 stepniece. Man is born to
trouble; so, as old Jerome had no family of his own, he took up the
burdens of others.
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.
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 St. Vitusy.
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.
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.
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?
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.
"I am sure we shall be the best of friends," said Barbara, pecking at
the firm, sunburned cheek.
"I hope so," said Nevada.
"Dear little niece," said old Jerome, "you are as welcome to my home
as if it were your father's own."
"Thanks," said Nevada.
"And I am going to call you 'cousin,'" said Gilbert, with his charming
smile.
"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."
II
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.
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.
A maid brought in a note for Miss Nevada Warren.
"A messenger-boy delivered it at the door, please," she said. "He's
waiting for an answer."
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.
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.
"Uncle Jerome, Gilbert is a nice boy, isn't he?"
"Why, bless the child!" said old Jerome, crackling his paper loudly;
"of course he is. I raised him myself."
"He wouldn't write anything to anybody that wasn't exactly--I mean
that everybody couldn't know and read, would he?"
"I'd just like to see him try it," said uncle, tearing a handful from
his newspaper. "Why, what--"
"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."
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.
"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."
"Would it be all right to go?" asked Nevada, eagerly.
"Yes, yes, yes, child; of course. Why not? Still, it pleases me to
see you so careful and candid. Go, by all means."
"I didn't know," said Nevada, demurely. "I thought I'd ask you.
Couldn't you go with us, uncle?"
"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!"
Nevada flew to the door, and said to the maid:
"You bet we'll go. I'll answer for Miss Barbara. Tell the boy to say
to Mr. Warren, 'You bet we'll go.'"
"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."
"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 Canon, and if it's any livelier than that I'd like to know!"
III
Two months are supposed to have elapsed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
cast. Old Jerome growled good-naturedly about villanous 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.
Old Jerome went immediately up-stairs to hot-water-bottles and
quinine. Nevada fluttered into the study, the only cheerfully lighted
Espinosa City. 'Your regular engraved Tuesdays-and-Fridays visiting-
card wouldn't have a louder voice in proclaiming your indemnity than
this here currency. You can get up now and prepare to go with us and
expatriate your sins.
"H. Ogden gets up and fixes his necktie. He says no more after they
have taken the money off of him.
"'A well-greased idea,' says the sheriff captain, admiring, 'to slip
off down here and buy a little sheep-ranch where the hand of man is
seldom heard. It was the slickest hide-out I ever see,' says the
captain.
"So one of the men goes to the shearing-pen and hunts up the other
herder, a Mexican they call John Sallies, and he saddles Ogden's
horse, and the sheriffs all ride tip close around him with their guns
in hand, ready to take their prisoner to town.
"Before starting, Ogden puts the ranch in John Sallies' hands and
gives him orders about the shearing and where to graze the sheep, just
as if he intended to be back in a few days. And a couple of hours
afterward one Percival Saint Clair, an ex-sheep-herder of the Rancho
Chiquito, might have been seen, with a hundred and nine dollars--wages
and blood-money--in his pocket, riding south on another horse
belonging to said ranch."
The red-faced man paused and listened. The whistle of a coming
freight-train sounded far away among the low hills.
The fat, seedy man at his side sniffed, and shook his frowzy head
slowly and disparagingly.
"What is it, Snipy?" asked the other. "Got the blues again?"
"No, I ain't" said the seedy one, sniffing again. "But I don't like
your talk. You and me have been friends, off and on, for fifteen
year; and I never yet knew or heard of you giving anybody up to the
law--not no one. And here was a man whose saleratus you had et and at
whose table you had played games of cards--if casino can be so called.
And yet you inform him to the law and take money for it. It never was
like you, I say."
"This H. Ogden," resumed the red-faced man, "through a lawyer, proved
himself free by alibis and other legal terminalities, as I so heard
afterward. He never suffered no harm. He did me favors, and I hated
to hand him over."
"How about the bills they found in his pocket?" asked the seedy man.
"I put 'em there," said the red-faced man, "while he was asleep, when
I saw the posse riding up. I was Black Bill. Look out, Snipy, here
she comes! We'll board her on the bumpers when she takes water at the
tank."
SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLS
I
Old Jerome Warren lived in a hundred-thousand-dollar house at 35 East
Fifty-Soforth Street. He was a down-town 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.
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 stepniece. Man is born to
trouble; so, as old Jerome had no family of his own, he took up the
burdens of others.
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.
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 St. Vitusy.
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.
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.
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?
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.
"I am sure we shall be the best of friends," said Barbara, pecking at
the firm, sunburned cheek.
"I hope so," said Nevada.
"Dear little niece," said old Jerome, "you are as welcome to my home
as if it were your father's own."
"Thanks," said Nevada.
"And I am going to call you 'cousin,'" said Gilbert, with his charming
smile.
"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."
II
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.
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.
A maid brought in a note for Miss Nevada Warren.
"A messenger-boy delivered it at the door, please," she said. "He's
waiting for an answer."
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.
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.
"Uncle Jerome, Gilbert is a nice boy, isn't he?"
"Why, bless the child!" said old Jerome, crackling his paper loudly;
"of course he is. I raised him myself."
"He wouldn't write anything to anybody that wasn't exactly--I mean
that everybody couldn't know and read, would he?"
"I'd just like to see him try it," said uncle, tearing a handful from
his newspaper. "Why, what--"
"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."
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.
"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."
"Would it be all right to go?" asked Nevada, eagerly.
"Yes, yes, yes, child; of course. Why not? Still, it pleases me to
see you so careful and candid. Go, by all means."
"I didn't know," said Nevada, demurely. "I thought I'd ask you.
Couldn't you go with us, uncle?"
"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!"
Nevada flew to the door, and said to the maid:
"You bet we'll go. I'll answer for Miss Barbara. Tell the boy to say
to Mr. Warren, 'You bet we'll go.'"
"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."
"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 Canon, and if it's any livelier than that I'd like to know!"
III
Two months are supposed to have elapsed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
cast. Old Jerome growled good-naturedly about villanous 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.
Old Jerome went immediately up-stairs to hot-water-bottles and
quinine. Nevada fluttered into the study, the only cheerfully lighted
- sheriff [´ʃerif]
n.郡长；行政长官 (初中英语单词) - mexican [´meksikən] n.&a.墨西哥人(语)的 (初中英语单词)
- whistle [´wisəl] v.吹哨 n.口哨；汽笛 (初中英语单词)
- lawyer [´lɔ:jə] n.律师；法学家 (初中英语单词)
- painter [´peintə] n.画家；(油)漆工 (初中英语单词)
- minister [´ministə] n.部长；大臣 v.伺候 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- spelling [´speliŋ] n.拼法；缀字 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- independence [,indi´pendəns] n.独立，自主，自立 (初中英语单词)
- contents [´kɔ:ntents] n.容纳物；要旨 (初中英语单词)
- fiercely [´fiəsli] ad.凶猛地，残忍地 (初中英语单词)
- bother [´bɔðə] v.打扰 n.麻烦(事) (初中英语单词)
- supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
- repair [ri´peə] v.&n.修理，修补 (初中英语单词)
- western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
- musical [´mju:zikəl] a.音乐的；悦耳的 (初中英语单词)
- envelope [´envələup] n.信封，封皮 (初中英语单词)
- handful [hændful] n.一把，少数，一小撮 (高中英语单词)
- currency [´kʌrənsi] n.通货；通用；货币 (高中英语单词)
- squeeze [skwi:z] v.&n.压榨，榨取 (高中英语单词)
- cherish [´tʃeriʃ] vt.珍爱；怀有(感情) (高中英语单词)
- nevada [ne´vɑ:də] n.内华达 (高中英语单词)
- exhibition [eksi´biʃ(ə)n] n.展览；显示；表演 (高中英语单词)
- finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
- criticise [´kritisaiz] v.批评；批判；评论 (高中英语单词)
- thickly [´θikli] ad.厚厚地；密密地 (高中英语单词)
- appropriate [ə´prəupri-it, ə´prəuprieit] a.适宜的 vt.私占；拨给 (高中英语单词)
- cheerfully [´tʃiəfuli] ad.高兴地，愉快地 (高中英语单词)
- necktie [´nektai] n.领带 (英语四级单词)
- warren [´wɔrən] n.养兔场；大杂院 (英语四级单词)
- broker [´brəukə] n.经纪人，掮客 (英语四级单词)
- commotion [kə´məuʃən] n.混乱；骚动 (英语四级单词)
- complication [,kɔmpli´keiʃən] n.复杂；混乱；纠纷 (英语四级单词)
- whiskey [´wiski] n.威士忌酒 =whisky (英语四级单词)
- immortality [,imɔ:´tæliti] n.不死，不朽，永生，来生 (英语四级单词)
- triangle [´traiæŋgəl] n.三角(形)；三角关系 (英语四级单词)
- setting [´setiŋ] n.安装；排字；布景 (英语四级单词)
- duplicate [´dju:plikit] vt.复写 a.副的 n.复本 (英语四级单词)
- ridden [´ridn] ride 的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- nervously [´nə:vəsli] ad.神经质地；胆怯地 (英语四级单词)
- necklace [´neklis] n.项链 (英语四级单词)
- forbade [fə´beid] forbid的过去式 (英语四级单词)
- indemnity [in´demniti] n.赔偿；保护，保险 (英语六级单词)
- good-looking [] a.漂亮的，美貌的 (英语六级单词)
- leggings [´legiŋz] n.绑腿，裹腿 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- wintry [´wintri] a.冬天的；荒凉的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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