章节正文
fast as they came in the door. Now, if a six-shooter
could -- "
"Oh, well," said I, "that's different. Arizona is
a long way from New York. I could have a man
stabbed with a lariat or chased by a pair of chap-
arreras if I wanted to, and it wouldn't be noticed
until the usual error-sharp from around McAdams
Junction isolates the erratum and writes in to the pa-
pers about it. But you are up against another
proposition. This thing they call love is as common
around New York as it is in Sheboygan during the
young onion season. It may be mixed here with a
little commercialism -- they read Byron, but they
look up Bradstreet's, too, while they're among the
B's, and Brigham also if they have time -- but it's
pretty much the same old internaldisturbance every-
where. You can fool an editor with a fake picture of
a cowboy mounting a pony with his left hand on the
saddle horn, but you can't put him up a tree with a
love story. So, you've got to fall in love and then
write the real thing."
Pettit did. I never knew whether he was taking
my advice or whether be fell an accidental victim.
There was a girl be had met at one of these studio
contrivances - a glorious, impudent, lucid, open-
minded girl with hair the color of Culmbacher, and a
good-natured way of despising you. She was a New
York girl.
Well (as the narrative style permits us to say in-
frequently), Pettit went to pieces. All those pains,
those lover's doubts, those heart-burnings and
tremors of which be had written so unconvincingly
were his. Talk about Shylock's pound of flesh!
Twenty-five pounds Cupid got from Pettit. Which
is the usurer?
One night Pettit came to my room exalted. Pale
and haggard but exalted. She had given him a
jonquil.
"Old Hoss," said he, with a new smile flickering
around his mouth, "I believe I could write that story
to-night -- the one, you know, that is to win out.
"I can feel it. I don't know whether it will come out
or not, but I can feel it."
I pushed him out of my door. "Go to your room
and write it," I ordered. "Else I can see your fin-
ish. I told you this must come first. Write it to-
night and put it under my door when it is done. Put
it under my door to-night when it is finished --
don't keep it until to-morrow."
I was reading my bully old pal Montaigne at two
o'clock when I beard the sheets rustle under my door.
I gathered them up and read the story.
The hissing of geese, the languishing cooing of
doves, the braying of donkeys, the chatter of irre-
sponsible sparrows - these were in my mind's ear as
I read. "Suffering Sappho!" I exclaimed to myself.
"Is this the divine fire that is supposed to ignite
genius and make it practicable and wage-earning?"
The story was sentimental drivel, full of whim-
pering softheartedness and gushing egoism. All
the art that Pettit had acquired was gone. A pe-
rusal of its buttery phrases would have made a cynic
of a sighing chambermaid.
In the morning Pettit came to my room. I read
him his doom mercilessly. He laughed idiotically.
"All right, Old Hoss," he said, cheerily, "make
cigar-lighters of it. What's the difference? I'm
going to take her to lunch at Claremont to-day."
There was about a month of it. And then Pettit
came to me bearing an invisible mitten, with the forti-
tude of a dish-rag. He talked of the grave and
South America and prussic acid; and I lost an after-
noon getting him straight. I took him out and saw
that large and curative doses of whiskey were ad-
ministered to him. I warned you this was a true
story -- 'ware your white ribbons if only follow this
tale. For two weeks I fed him whiskey and Omar,
and read to him regularly every evening the column
in the evening paper that reveals the secrets of fe-
male beauty. I recommend the treatment.
After Pettit was cured be wrote more stories. He
recovered his old-timefacility and did work just
short of good enough. Then the curtain rose on
the third act.
A little, dark-eyed, silent girl from New Hamp-
shire, who was studying applied design, fell deeply
in love with him. She was the intense sort, but ex-
ternally glace, such as New England sometimes fools
us with. Pettit liked her mildly, and took her about
a good deal. She worshipped him, and now and then
ignored him.
There came a climax when she tried to jump out
of a window, and he had to save her by some perfunc-
tary, unmeant wooing. Even I was shaken by the
depths of the absorbing affection she showed. Home,
friends, traditions, creeds went up like thistle-down
in the scale against her love. It was really discom-
posing.
One night again Pettit sauntered in, yawning. As
he had told me before, he said he felt that he could
do a great story, and as before I hunted him to his
room and saw him open his inkstand. At one o'clock
the sheets of paper slid under my door.
I read that story, and I jumped up, late as it was,
with a whoop of joy. Old Pettit had done it. Just
as though it lay there, red and bleeding, a woman's
heart was written into the lines. You couldn't see
the joining, but art, exquisite art, and pulsing na-
ture had been combined into a love story that took
you by the throat like the quinsy. I broke into
Pettit's room and beat him on the back and called
him name -- names high up in the galaxy of the im-
mortals that we admired. And Pettit yawned and
begged to be allowed to sleep.
On the morrow, I dragged him to an editor. The
great man read, and, rising, gave Pettit his hand.
That was a decoration, a wreath of bay, and a guar-
antee of rent.
And then old Pettit smiled slowly. I call him Gen-
tleman Pettit now to myself. It's a miserable name
to give a man, but it sounds better than it looks in
print.
"I see," said old Pettit, as he took up his story
and began tearing it into small strips. "I see the
game now. You can't write with ink, and you can't
write with your own heart's blood, but you can write
with the heart's blood of some one else. You have
to be a cad before you can be an artist. Well, I am
for old Alabam and the Major's store. Have you
got a light, Old Hoss?"
I went with Pettit to the depot and died hard.
"Shakespeare's sonnets?" I blurted, making a last
stand. "How about him?"
"A cad," said Pettit. "They give it to you, and
you sell it -- love, you know. I'd rather sell ploughs
for father."
"But," I protested, " you are reversing the de-
cision of the world's greatest -- "
"Good-by, Old Hoss," said Pettit.
"Critics," I continued. " But -- say -- if the
Major can use a fairly good salesman and book-
keeper down there in the store, let me know, will
you?"
NEMESIS AND THE CANDY MAN
"We sail at eight in the morning on the Celtic," said
Honoria, plucking a loose thread from her lace
sleeve.
"I heard so," said young Ives, dropping his hat,
and muffing it as he tried to catch it, "and I came
around to wish you a pleasant voyage."
"Of course you heard it," said Honoria, coldly
sweet, "since we have had no opportunity of inform-
ing you ourselves."
Ives looked at her pleadingly, but with little hope.
Outside in the street a high-pitched voice
chanted, not unmusically, a commercial gamut of
"Cand-de-ee-ee-s! Nice, fresh cand-ee-ee-ee-ees!d
"It's our old candy man," said Honoria, leaning
out the window and beckoning. "I want some of his
motto kisses. There's nothing in the Broadway
shops half so good."
The candy man stopped his pushcart in front of
the old Madison Avenue home. He had a holiday
and festival air unusual to street peddlers. His tie
was new and bright red, and a horseshoe pin, almost
life-size, glittered speciously from its folds. His
brown, thin face was crinkled into a semi-foolish
smile. Striped cuffs with dog-head buttons covered
the tan on his wrists.
"I do believe he's going to get married," said
Honoria, pityingly. "I never saw him taken that
way before. And to-day is the first time in months
that he has cried his wares, I am sure."
Ives threw a coin to the sidewalk. The candy man
knows his customers. He filled a paper bag, climbed
the old-fashioned stoop and banded it in.
"I remember -- " said Ives.
"Wait," said Honoria.
She took a small portfolio from the drawer of a
writing desk and from the portfolio a slip of flimsy
paper one-quarter of an inch by two inches in size.
"This," said Honoria, inflexibly, "was wrapped
about the first one we opened."
"It was a year ago," apologized Ives, as he held
out his hand for it,
"As long as skies above are blue
To you, my love, I will be true."
This he read from the slip of flimsy paper.
"We were to have sailed a fortnight ago," said
Honoria, gossipingly. "It has been such a warm
summer. The town is quite deserted. There is no-
where to go. Yet I am told that one or two of the
roof gardens are amusing. The, singing -- and the
dancing -- on one or two seem to have met with ap-
proval."
Ives did not wince. When you are in the ring you
are not surprised when your adversary taps you on
the ribs.
"I followed the candy man that time," said Ives,
irrelevantly, "and gave him five dollars at the corner
of Broadway."
could -- "
"Oh, well," said I, "that's different. Arizona is
a long way from New York. I could have a man
stabbed with a lariat or chased by a pair of chap-
arreras if I wanted to, and it wouldn't be noticed
until the usual error-sharp from around McAdams
Junction isolates the erratum and writes in to the pa-
pers about it. But you are up against another
proposition. This thing they call love is as common
around New York as it is in Sheboygan during the
young onion season. It may be mixed here with a
little commercialism -- they read Byron, but they
look up Bradstreet's, too, while they're among the
B's, and Brigham also if they have time -- but it's
pretty much the same old internaldisturbance every-
where. You can fool an editor with a fake picture of
a cowboy mounting a pony with his left hand on the
saddle horn, but you can't put him up a tree with a
love story. So, you've got to fall in love and then
write the real thing."
Pettit did. I never knew whether he was taking
my advice or whether be fell an accidental victim.
There was a girl be had met at one of these studio
contrivances - a glorious, impudent, lucid, open-
minded girl with hair the color of Culmbacher, and a
good-natured way of despising you. She was a New
York girl.
Well (as the narrative style permits us to say in-
frequently), Pettit went to pieces. All those pains,
those lover's doubts, those heart-burnings and
tremors of which be had written so unconvincingly
were his. Talk about Shylock's pound of flesh!
Twenty-five pounds Cupid got from Pettit. Which
is the usurer?
One night Pettit came to my room exalted. Pale
and haggard but exalted. She had given him a
jonquil.
"Old Hoss," said he, with a new smile flickering
around his mouth, "I believe I could write that story
to-night -- the one, you know, that is to win out.
"I can feel it. I don't know whether it will come out
or not, but I can feel it."
I pushed him out of my door. "Go to your room
and write it," I ordered. "Else I can see your fin-
ish. I told you this must come first. Write it to-
night and put it under my door when it is done. Put
it under my door to-night when it is finished --
don't keep it until to-morrow."
I was reading my bully old pal Montaigne at two
o'clock when I beard the sheets rustle under my door.
I gathered them up and read the story.
The hissing of geese, the languishing cooing of
doves, the braying of donkeys, the chatter of irre-
sponsible sparrows - these were in my mind's ear as
I read. "Suffering Sappho!" I exclaimed to myself.
"Is this the divine fire that is supposed to ignite
genius and make it practicable and wage-earning?"
The story was sentimental drivel, full of whim-
pering softheartedness and gushing egoism. All
the art that Pettit had acquired was gone. A pe-
rusal of its buttery phrases would have made a cynic
of a sighing chambermaid.
In the morning Pettit came to my room. I read
him his doom mercilessly. He laughed idiotically.
"All right, Old Hoss," he said, cheerily, "make
cigar-lighters of it. What's the difference? I'm
going to take her to lunch at Claremont to-day."
There was about a month of it. And then Pettit
came to me bearing an invisible mitten, with the forti-
tude of a dish-rag. He talked of the grave and
South America and prussic acid; and I lost an after-
noon getting him straight. I took him out and saw
that large and curative doses of whiskey were ad-
ministered to him. I warned you this was a true
story -- 'ware your white ribbons if only follow this
tale. For two weeks I fed him whiskey and Omar,
and read to him regularly every evening the column
in the evening paper that reveals the secrets of fe-
male beauty. I recommend the treatment.
After Pettit was cured be wrote more stories. He
recovered his old-timefacility and did work just
short of good enough. Then the curtain rose on
the third act.
A little, dark-eyed, silent girl from New Hamp-
shire, who was studying applied design, fell deeply
in love with him. She was the intense sort, but ex-
ternally glace, such as New England sometimes fools
us with. Pettit liked her mildly, and took her about
a good deal. She worshipped him, and now and then
ignored him.
There came a climax when she tried to jump out
of a window, and he had to save her by some perfunc-
tary, unmeant wooing. Even I was shaken by the
depths of the absorbing affection she showed. Home,
friends, traditions, creeds went up like thistle-down
in the scale against her love. It was really discom-
posing.
One night again Pettit sauntered in, yawning. As
he had told me before, he said he felt that he could
do a great story, and as before I hunted him to his
room and saw him open his inkstand. At one o'clock
the sheets of paper slid under my door.
I read that story, and I jumped up, late as it was,
with a whoop of joy. Old Pettit had done it. Just
as though it lay there, red and bleeding, a woman's
heart was written into the lines. You couldn't see
the joining, but art, exquisite art, and pulsing na-
ture had been combined into a love story that took
you by the throat like the quinsy. I broke into
Pettit's room and beat him on the back and called
him name -- names high up in the galaxy of the im-
mortals that we admired. And Pettit yawned and
begged to be allowed to sleep.
On the morrow, I dragged him to an editor. The
great man read, and, rising, gave Pettit his hand.
That was a decoration, a wreath of bay, and a guar-
antee of rent.
And then old Pettit smiled slowly. I call him Gen-
tleman Pettit now to myself. It's a miserable name
to give a man, but it sounds better than it looks in
print.
"I see," said old Pettit, as he took up his story
and began tearing it into small strips. "I see the
game now. You can't write with ink, and you can't
write with your own heart's blood, but you can write
with the heart's blood of some one else. You have
to be a cad before you can be an artist. Well, I am
for old Alabam and the Major's store. Have you
got a light, Old Hoss?"
I went with Pettit to the depot and died hard.
"Shakespeare's sonnets?" I blurted, making a last
stand. "How about him?"
"A cad," said Pettit. "They give it to you, and
you sell it -- love, you know. I'd rather sell ploughs
for father."
"But," I protested, " you are reversing the de-
cision of the world's greatest -- "
"Good-by, Old Hoss," said Pettit.
"Critics," I continued. " But -- say -- if the
Major can use a fairly good salesman and book-
keeper down there in the store, let me know, will
you?"
NEMESIS AND THE CANDY MAN
"We sail at eight in the morning on the Celtic," said
Honoria, plucking a loose thread from her lace
sleeve.
"I heard so," said young Ives, dropping his hat,
and muffing it as he tried to catch it, "and I came
around to wish you a pleasant voyage."
"Of course you heard it," said Honoria, coldly
sweet, "since we have had no opportunity of inform-
ing you ourselves."
Ives looked at her pleadingly, but with little hope.
Outside in the street a high-pitched voice
chanted, not unmusically, a commercial gamut of
"Cand-de-ee-ee-s! Nice, fresh cand-ee-ee-ee-ees!d
"It's our old candy man," said Honoria, leaning
out the window and beckoning. "I want some of his
motto kisses. There's nothing in the Broadway
shops half so good."
The candy man stopped his pushcart in front of
the old Madison Avenue home. He had a holiday
and festival air unusual to street peddlers. His tie
was new and bright red, and a horseshoe pin, almost
life-size, glittered speciously from its folds. His
brown, thin face was crinkled into a semi-foolish
smile. Striped cuffs with dog-head buttons covered
the tan on his wrists.
"I do believe he's going to get married," said
Honoria, pityingly. "I never saw him taken that
way before. And to-day is the first time in months
that he has cried his wares, I am sure."
Ives threw a coin to the sidewalk. The candy man
knows his customers. He filled a paper bag, climbed
the old-fashioned stoop and banded it in.
"I remember -- " said Ives.
"Wait," said Honoria.
She took a small portfolio from the drawer of a
writing desk and from the portfolio a slip of flimsy
paper one-quarter of an inch by two inches in size.
"This," said Honoria, inflexibly, "was wrapped
about the first one we opened."
"It was a year ago," apologized Ives, as he held
out his hand for it,
"As long as skies above are blue
To you, my love, I will be true."
This he read from the slip of flimsy paper.
"We were to have sailed a fortnight ago," said
Honoria, gossipingly. "It has been such a warm
summer. The town is quite deserted. There is no-
where to go. Yet I am told that one or two of the
roof gardens are amusing. The, singing -- and the
dancing -- on one or two seem to have met with ap-
proval."
Ives did not wince. When you are in the ring you
are not surprised when your adversary taps you on
the ribs.
"I followed the candy man that time," said Ives,
irrelevantly, "and gave him five dollars at the corner
of Broadway."
- glorious [´glɔ:riəs]
a.光荣的；辉煌的 (初中英语单词) - reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- rustle [´rʌsl] v.&n.(使)沙沙作响 (初中英语单词)
- chatter [´tʃætə] vi.&n.饶舌；闲聊 (初中英语单词)
- divine [di´vain] a.神圣的 v.预言 (初中英语单词)
- supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
- invisible [in´vizəbəl] a.看不见的；无形的 (初中英语单词)
- recommend [,rekə´mend] vt.推荐；使受欢迎 (初中英语单词)
- facility [fə´siliti] n.容易；熟练；灵巧 (初中英语单词)
- shaken [´ʃeikən] shake的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- affection [ə´fekʃən] n.友爱；慈爱 (初中英语单词)
- throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
- decoration [,dekə´reiʃən] n.装饰(品)；装璜 (初中英语单词)
- wreath [ri:θ] n.花圈；花环；圈状物 (初中英语单词)
- miserable [´mizərəbəl] a.悲惨的；可怜的 (初中英语单词)
- commercial [kə´mə:ʃəl] a.商业的 n.广告节目 (初中英语单词)
- unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
- old-fashioned [´əuld´feʃənd] a.老式的；过时的 (初中英语单词)
- drawer [drɔ:ə] n.抽屉 (初中英语单词)
- arizona [,æri´zəunə] n.亚利桑那(州) (高中英语单词)
- internal [in´tə:nl] a.内部的；国内的 (高中英语单词)
- disturbance [di´stə:bəns] n.扰乱，骚动 (高中英语单词)
- narrative [´nærətiv] a.叙述的 n.记事 (高中英语单词)
- bearing [´beəriŋ] n.举止；忍耐；关系 (高中英语单词)
- regularly [´regjuləli] ad.有规律地；经常地 (高中英语单词)
- intense [in´tens] a.强烈的；紧张的 (高中英语单词)
- climax [´klaimæks] n.顶点；高潮 (高中英语单词)
- exquisite [ik´skwizit] a.精巧的；敏锐的 (高中英语单词)
- salesman [´seilzmən] n.店员；推销员 (高中英语单词)
- festival [´festivəl] n.节日；庆祝；欢庆 (高中英语单词)
- sidewalk [´saidwɔ:k] n.人行道 (高中英语单词)
- fortnight [´fɔ:tnait] n.两星期 (高中英语单词)
- amusing [ə´mju:ziŋ] a.有趣的 (高中英语单词)
- accidental [,æksi´dentl] a.偶然的；附属的 (英语四级单词)
- haggard [´hægəd] a.憔悴的 (英语四级单词)
- languishing [´læŋgwiʃiŋ] a.衰弱下去的 (英语四级单词)
- sentimental [,senti´mentl] a.感伤的；多愁善感的 (英语四级单词)
- cheerily [´tʃiərili] ad. 高兴地；愉快地 (英语四级单词)
- whiskey [´wiski] n.威士忌酒 =whisky (英语四级单词)
- old-time [´əuld-´taim] a.老资格的；古时的 (英语四级单词)
- mildly [´maildli] ad.温和地；适度地 (英语四级单词)
- morrow [´mɔrəu] n.翌日 (英语四级单词)
- striped [´straipt] a.有条纹的 (英语四级单词)
- adversary [´ædvəsəri] n.敌手，对手 (英语四级单词)
- cowboy [´kaubɔi] n.牧童；牛仔 (英语六级单词)
- practicable [´præktikəbəl] a.可实行的；适用的 (英语六级单词)
- applied [ə´plaid] a.实用的，应用的 (英语六级单词)
- horseshoe [´hɔ:s,ʃu] n.马蹄铁；马蹄铁形 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
