章节正文
much lapel. Your hat is plainly dated one year ago,
although there's only a sixteenth of an inch lacking
in the brim to tell the story. That English poke in
your collar is too short by the distance between Troy
and London. A plain gold link cuff-button would
take all the shine out of those pearl ones with dia-
mond settings. Those tan shoes would be exactly
the articles to work into the heart of a Brooklyn
school-ma'am on a two weeks' visit to Lake Ronkon-
koma. I think I caught a glimpse of a blue silk
sock embroidered with russet lilies of the valley when
you -- improperly -- drew up your trousers as you
sat down. There are always plain ones to be had
in the stores. Have I hurt your feelings, Emer-
son?"
"Double the ante!" cried the criticised one, greed-
ily. "Give me more of it. There's a way to tote
the haberdashery, and I want to get wise to it. Say,
you're the right kind of a swell. Anything else to the
queer about me?"
"Your tie," said Vuyning, "is tied with absolute
precision and correctness."
"Thanks," gratefully -- "I spent over half an
hour at it before I -- "
"Thereby," interrupted Vuyning, "completing
your resemblance to a dummy in a Broadway store
window."
"Yours truly," said Emerson, sitting down again.
"It's bully of you to put me wise. I knew there
was something wrong, but I couldn't just put my
finger on it. I guess it comes by nature to know how
to wear clothes."
"Oh, I suppose," said Vuyning, with a laugh,
"that my ancestors picked up the knack while they
were peddling clothes from house to house a couple
of hundred years ago. I'm told they did that."
"And mine," said Emerson, cheerfully, "were
making their visits at night, I guess, and didn't have
a chance to catch on to the correct styles."
"I tell you what," said Vuyning, whose ennui had
taken wings, "I'll take you to my tailor. He'll
eliminate the mark of the beast from your exterior.
That is, if you care to go any further in the way of
expense."
"Play 'em to the ceiling," said Emerson, with a
boyish smile of joy. "I've got a roll as big around
as a barrel of black-eyed peas and as loose as the
wrapper of a two-for-fiver. I don't mind telling you
that I was not touring among the Antipodes when
the burglar-proof safe of the Farmers' National Bank
of Butterville, Ia., flew open some moonless nights
ago to the tune of $16,000."
"Aren't you afraid," asked Vuyning, "that I'll
call a cop and hand you over?"
"You tell me," said Emerson, coolly, "why I
didn't keep them."
He laid Vuyning's pocketbook and watch -- the
Vuyning 100-year-old family watch on the table.
"Man," said Vuyning, revelling, "did you ever
hear the tale Kirk tells about the six-pound trout
and the old fisherman?"
"Seems not," said Emerson, politely. "I'd
like to."
"But you won't," said Vuyning. "I've heard it
scores of times. That's why I won't tell you. I was
just thinking how much better this is than a club.
Now, shall we go to my tailor?"
"Boys, and elderly gents," said Vuyning, five days
later at his club, standing up against the window
where his coterie was gathered, and keeping out the
breeze, "a friend of mine from the West will dine
at our table this evening."
"Will he ask if we have heard the latest from
Denver?" said a member, squirming in his chair.
"Will he mention the new twenty-three-story Ma-
sonic Temple, in Quincy, Ill.?" inquired another,
dropping his nose-glasses.
"Will he spring one of those Western Mississippi
River catfish stories, in which they use yearling
calves for bait?" demanded Kirk, fiercely.
"Be comforted," said Vuyning. "He has none of
the little vices. He is a burglar and safe-blower,
and a pal of mine."
"Oh, Mary Ann!" said they. "Must you always
adorn every statement with your alleged humor?"
It came to pass that at eight in the evening a calm,
smooth, brilliant, affable man sat at Vuyning's right
hand during dinner. And when the ones who pass
their lives in city streets spoke of skyscrapers or of
the little Czar on his far, frozenthrone, or of insig-
nificant fish from inconsequential streams, this big,
deep-chested man, faultlessly clothed, and eyed like
an Emperor, disposed of their Lilliputian chatter
with a wink of his eyelash.
And then he painted for them with hard, broad
strokes a marvellous lingual panorama of the West.
He stacked snow-topped mountains on the table,
freezing the hot dishes of the waiting diners. With
a wave of his hand he swept the clubhouse into a
pine-crowned gorge, turning the waiters into a grim
posse, and each listener into a blood-stained fugitive,
climbing with torn fingers upon the ensanguined
rocks. He touched the table and spake, and the five
panted as they gazed on barren lava beds, and each
man took his tongue between his teeth and felt his
mouth bake at the tale of a land empty of water and
food. As simply as Homer sang, while he dug a tine
of his fork leisurely into the tablecloth, he opened a
new world to their view, as does one who tells a child
of the Looking-Glass Country.
As one of his listeners might have spoken of tea
too strong at a Madison Square "afternoon," so he
depicted the ravages of redeye in a border town
when the caballeros of the lariat and "forty-five"
reduced ennui to a minimum.
And then, with a sweep of his white, unringed
hands, be dismissed Melpomene, and forthwith Diana
and Amaryllis footed it before the mind's eyes of
the clubmen.
The savannas of the continent spread before them.
The wind, humming through a hundred leagues of
sage brush and mesquite, closed their ears to the
city's staccato noises. He told them of camps, of
ranches marooned in a sea of fragrantprairie blos-
soms, of gallops in the stilly night that Apollo would
have forsaken his daytime steeds to enjoy; he read
them the great, rough epic of the cattle and the hills
that have not been spoiled by the band of man, the
mason. His words were a telescope to the city men,
whose eyes had looked upon Youngstown, O., and
whose tongues had called it "West."
In fact, Emerson had them "going."
The next morning at ten he met Vuyning, by ap-
pointment, at a Forty-second Street cafe.
Emerson was to leave for the West that day. He
wore a suit of dark cheviot that looked to have been
draped upon him by an ancient Grecian tailor who
was a few thousand years ahead of the styles.
"Mr. Vuyning," said he, with the clear, ingenuous
smile of the successful "crook," it's up to me to
go the limit for you any time I can do so. You're
the real thing; and if I can ever return the favor, you
bet your life I'll do it."
"What was that cow-puncher's name?" asked
Vuyning, "who used to catch a mustang by the nose
and mane, and throw him till he put the bridle on?"
"Bates," said Emerson.
"Thanks," said Vuyning. "I thought it was
Yates. Oh, about that toggery business -- I'd for-
gotten that."
"I've been looking for some guy to put me on the
right track for years," said Emerson. "You're the
goods, duty free, and half-way to the warehouse in a
red wagon."
"Bacon, toasted on a green willowswitch over red
coals, ought to put broiled lobsters out of business,"
said Vuyning. "And you say a horse at the end of a
thirty-foot rope can't pull a ten-inch stake out of wet
prairie? Well, good-bye, old man, if you must
be off."
At one o'clock Vuyning had luncheon with Miss
Allison by previous arrangement.
For thirty minutes be babbled to her, unaccount-
ably, of ranches, horses, cations, cyclones, round-ups,
Rocky Mountains and beans and bacon. She looked
at him with wondering and half-terrified eyes.
"I was going to propose again to-day," said Vuy-
ning, cheerily, but I won't. I've worried you often
enough. You know dad has a ranch in Colorado.
What's the good of staying here? Jumping jon-
quils! but it's great out there. I'm going to start
next Tuesday."
"No, you won't," said Miss Allison.
"What?" said Vuyning.
"Not alone," said Miss Allison, dropping a tear
upon her salad. "What do you think?"
"Betty!" exclaimed Vuyning, "what do you
mean?
"I'll go too," said Miss Allison, forcibly.
Vuyning filled her glass with Apollinaris.
"Here's to Rowdy the Dude!" he gave -- a toast
mysterious.
"Don't know him," said Miss Allison; "but if
he's your friend, Jimmy -- here goes!"
THE MEMENTO
Miss Lynnette D'Armande turned her
back on Broadway. This was but tit for tat, be-
cause Broadway had often done the same thing to
Miss D'Armande. Still, the "tats" seemed to have
it, for the ex-leading lady of the "Reaping the
Whirlwind" company had everything to ask of
Broadway, while there was no vice-versa.
So Miss Lynnette D'Armande turned the back of
her chair to her window that overlooked Broadway,
and sat down to stitch in time the lisle-thread heel
of a black silk stocking. The tumult and glitter of
the roaring Broadway beneath her window had no
charm for her; what she greatly desired was the
stifling air of a dressing-room on that fairyland
street and the roar of an audience gathered in that
capricious quarter. In the meantime, those stock-
although there's only a sixteenth of an inch lacking
in the brim to tell the story. That English poke in
your collar is too short by the distance between Troy
and London. A plain gold link cuff-button would
take all the shine out of those pearl ones with dia-
mond settings. Those tan shoes would be exactly
the articles to work into the heart of a Brooklyn
school-ma'am on a two weeks' visit to Lake Ronkon-
koma. I think I caught a glimpse of a blue silk
sock embroidered with russet lilies of the valley when
you -- improperly -- drew up your trousers as you
sat down. There are always plain ones to be had
in the stores. Have I hurt your feelings, Emer-
son?"
"Double the ante!" cried the criticised one, greed-
ily. "Give me more of it. There's a way to tote
the haberdashery, and I want to get wise to it. Say,
you're the right kind of a swell. Anything else to the
queer about me?"
"Your tie," said Vuyning, "is tied with absolute
precision and correctness."
"Thanks," gratefully -- "I spent over half an
hour at it before I -- "
"Thereby," interrupted Vuyning, "completing
your resemblance to a dummy in a Broadway store
window."
"Yours truly," said Emerson, sitting down again.
"It's bully of you to put me wise. I knew there
was something wrong, but I couldn't just put my
finger on it. I guess it comes by nature to know how
to wear clothes."
"Oh, I suppose," said Vuyning, with a laugh,
"that my ancestors picked up the knack while they
were peddling clothes from house to house a couple
of hundred years ago. I'm told they did that."
"And mine," said Emerson, cheerfully, "were
making their visits at night, I guess, and didn't have
a chance to catch on to the correct styles."
"I tell you what," said Vuyning, whose ennui had
taken wings, "I'll take you to my tailor. He'll
eliminate the mark of the beast from your exterior.
That is, if you care to go any further in the way of
expense."
"Play 'em to the ceiling," said Emerson, with a
boyish smile of joy. "I've got a roll as big around
as a barrel of black-eyed peas and as loose as the
wrapper of a two-for-fiver. I don't mind telling you
that I was not touring among the Antipodes when
the burglar-proof safe of the Farmers' National Bank
of Butterville, Ia., flew open some moonless nights
ago to the tune of $16,000."
"Aren't you afraid," asked Vuyning, "that I'll
call a cop and hand you over?"
"You tell me," said Emerson, coolly, "why I
didn't keep them."
He laid Vuyning's pocketbook and watch -- the
Vuyning 100-year-old family watch on the table.
"Man," said Vuyning, revelling, "did you ever
hear the tale Kirk tells about the six-pound trout
and the old fisherman?"
"Seems not," said Emerson, politely. "I'd
like to."
"But you won't," said Vuyning. "I've heard it
scores of times. That's why I won't tell you. I was
just thinking how much better this is than a club.
Now, shall we go to my tailor?"
"Boys, and elderly gents," said Vuyning, five days
later at his club, standing up against the window
where his coterie was gathered, and keeping out the
breeze, "a friend of mine from the West will dine
at our table this evening."
"Will he ask if we have heard the latest from
Denver?" said a member, squirming in his chair.
"Will he mention the new twenty-three-story Ma-
sonic Temple, in Quincy, Ill.?" inquired another,
dropping his nose-glasses.
"Will he spring one of those Western Mississippi
River catfish stories, in which they use yearling
calves for bait?" demanded Kirk, fiercely.
"Be comforted," said Vuyning. "He has none of
the little vices. He is a burglar and safe-blower,
and a pal of mine."
"Oh, Mary Ann!" said they. "Must you always
adorn every statement with your alleged humor?"
It came to pass that at eight in the evening a calm,
smooth, brilliant, affable man sat at Vuyning's right
hand during dinner. And when the ones who pass
their lives in city streets spoke of skyscrapers or of
the little Czar on his far, frozenthrone, or of insig-
nificant fish from inconsequential streams, this big,
deep-chested man, faultlessly clothed, and eyed like
an Emperor, disposed of their Lilliputian chatter
with a wink of his eyelash.
And then he painted for them with hard, broad
strokes a marvellous lingual panorama of the West.
He stacked snow-topped mountains on the table,
freezing the hot dishes of the waiting diners. With
a wave of his hand he swept the clubhouse into a
pine-crowned gorge, turning the waiters into a grim
posse, and each listener into a blood-stained fugitive,
climbing with torn fingers upon the ensanguined
rocks. He touched the table and spake, and the five
panted as they gazed on barren lava beds, and each
man took his tongue between his teeth and felt his
mouth bake at the tale of a land empty of water and
food. As simply as Homer sang, while he dug a tine
of his fork leisurely into the tablecloth, he opened a
new world to their view, as does one who tells a child
of the Looking-Glass Country.
As one of his listeners might have spoken of tea
too strong at a Madison Square "afternoon," so he
depicted the ravages of redeye in a border town
when the caballeros of the lariat and "forty-five"
reduced ennui to a minimum.
And then, with a sweep of his white, unringed
hands, be dismissed Melpomene, and forthwith Diana
and Amaryllis footed it before the mind's eyes of
the clubmen.
The savannas of the continent spread before them.
The wind, humming through a hundred leagues of
sage brush and mesquite, closed their ears to the
city's staccato noises. He told them of camps, of
ranches marooned in a sea of fragrantprairie blos-
soms, of gallops in the stilly night that Apollo would
have forsaken his daytime steeds to enjoy; he read
them the great, rough epic of the cattle and the hills
that have not been spoiled by the band of man, the
mason. His words were a telescope to the city men,
whose eyes had looked upon Youngstown, O., and
whose tongues had called it "West."
In fact, Emerson had them "going."
The next morning at ten he met Vuyning, by ap-
pointment, at a Forty-second Street cafe.
Emerson was to leave for the West that day. He
wore a suit of dark cheviot that looked to have been
draped upon him by an ancient Grecian tailor who
was a few thousand years ahead of the styles.
"Mr. Vuyning," said he, with the clear, ingenuous
smile of the successful "crook," it's up to me to
go the limit for you any time I can do so. You're
the real thing; and if I can ever return the favor, you
bet your life I'll do it."
"What was that cow-puncher's name?" asked
Vuyning, "who used to catch a mustang by the nose
and mane, and throw him till he put the bridle on?"
"Bates," said Emerson.
"Thanks," said Vuyning. "I thought it was
Yates. Oh, about that toggery business -- I'd for-
gotten that."
"I've been looking for some guy to put me on the
right track for years," said Emerson. "You're the
goods, duty free, and half-way to the warehouse in a
red wagon."
"Bacon, toasted on a green willowswitch over red
coals, ought to put broiled lobsters out of business,"
said Vuyning. "And you say a horse at the end of a
thirty-foot rope can't pull a ten-inch stake out of wet
prairie? Well, good-bye, old man, if you must
be off."
At one o'clock Vuyning had luncheon with Miss
Allison by previous arrangement.
For thirty minutes be babbled to her, unaccount-
ably, of ranches, horses, cations, cyclones, round-ups,
Rocky Mountains and beans and bacon. She looked
at him with wondering and half-terrified eyes.
"I was going to propose again to-day," said Vuy-
ning, cheerily, but I won't. I've worried you often
enough. You know dad has a ranch in Colorado.
What's the good of staying here? Jumping jon-
quils! but it's great out there. I'm going to start
next Tuesday."
"No, you won't," said Miss Allison.
"What?" said Vuyning.
"Not alone," said Miss Allison, dropping a tear
upon her salad. "What do you think?"
"Betty!" exclaimed Vuyning, "what do you
mean?
"I'll go too," said Miss Allison, forcibly.
Vuyning filled her glass with Apollinaris.
"Here's to Rowdy the Dude!" he gave -- a toast
mysterious.
"Don't know him," said Miss Allison; "but if
he's your friend, Jimmy -- here goes!"
THE MEMENTO
Miss Lynnette D'Armande turned her
back on Broadway. This was but tit for tat, be-
cause Broadway had often done the same thing to
Miss D'Armande. Still, the "tats" seemed to have
it, for the ex-leading lady of the "Reaping the
Whirlwind" company had everything to ask of
Broadway, while there was no vice-versa.
So Miss Lynnette D'Armande turned the back of
her chair to her window that overlooked Broadway,
and sat down to stitch in time the lisle-thread heel
of a black silk stocking. The tumult and glitter of
the roaring Broadway beneath her window had no
charm for her; what she greatly desired was the
stifling air of a dressing-room on that fairyland
street and the roar of an audience gathered in that
capricious quarter. In the meantime, those stock-
- plainly [´pleinli]
ad.平坦地；简单地 (初中英语单词) - collar [´kɔlə] n.衣领；(狗等的)项圈 (初中英语单词)
- glimpse [glimps] n.&v.瞥见 (初中英语单词)
- valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
- trousers [´trauzəz] n.裤子，长裤 (初中英语单词)
- gratefully [´greitfuli] ad.感激地 (初中英语单词)
- tailor [´teilə] n.裁缝 vt.裁制(衣服) (初中英语单词)
- barrel [´bærəl] n.(琵琶)桶；圆筒 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- temple [´tempəl] n.庙宇；寺院；太阳穴 (初中英语单词)
- western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
- brilliant [´briliənt] a.灿烂的；杰出的 (初中英语单词)
- frozen [´frəuzn] freeze 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- emperor [´empərə] n.皇帝 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- barren [´bærən] a.贫瘠的；不生育的 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- continent [´kɔntinənt] n.大陆，陆地 (初中英语单词)
- prairie [´preəri] n.大草原 (初中英语单词)
- apollo [ə´pɔləu] n.阿波罗 (初中英语单词)
- willow [´wiləu] n.柳树 (初中英语单词)
- luncheon [´lʌntʃ(ə)n] n.午餐，午宴 (初中英语单词)
- previous [´pri:viəs] a.先，前，以前的 (初中英语单词)
- stocking [´stɔkiŋ] n.长统袜 (初中英语单词)
- glitter [´glitə] n.光辉 vi.闪烁，炫耀 (初中英语单词)
- audience [´ɔ:diəns] n.听众；观众；接见 (初中英语单词)
- meantime [´mi:ntaim] n.&ad.其间；同时 (初中英语单词)
- resemblance [ri´zembləns] n.类似；肖像；外表 (高中英语单词)
- broadway [´brɔ:dwei] n.&a.百老汇大街(的) (高中英语单词)
- cheerfully [´tʃiəfuli] ad.高兴地，愉快地 (高中英语单词)
- politely [pə´laitli] ad.温和地；文雅地 (高中英语单词)
- throne [θrəun] n.宝座；王位 (高中英语单词)
- forthwith [fɔ:θ´wið] ad.立刻 (高中英语单词)
- fragrant [´freigrənt] a.芳香的，芬芳的 (高中英语单词)
- daytime [´deitaim] n.白天 (高中英语单词)
- telescope [´teliskəup] n.望远镜 (高中英语单词)
- bridle [´braidl] n.(马)笼头；束缚 (高中英语单词)
- half-way [´hɑ:fwei] ad.半途；几乎 (高中英语单词)
- switch [switʃ] n.开关 v.转换 (高中英语单词)
- stitch [stitʃ] n.针脚 v.缝(纫) (高中英语单词)
- tumult [´tju:mʌlt, ´tu:-] n.喧哗；激昂；烦乱 (高中英语单词)
- coolly [´ku:li] ad.冷(静地)，沉着地 (英语四级单词)
- elderly [´eldəli] a. 较老的，年长的 (英语四级单词)
- burglar [´bə:glə] n.(入室行窃的)盗贼 (英语四级单词)
- listener [´lisənə] n.(收)听者，听众之一 (英语四级单词)
- leisurely [´leʒəli] a.从容地，慢慢地 (英语四级单词)
- warehouse [´weəhaus] n.仓库 v.存入仓库 (英语四级单词)
- cheerily [´tʃiərili] ad. 高兴地；愉快地 (英语四级单词)
- pocketbook [´pɔkitbuk] n.袖珍本；皮夹子；财力 (英语六级单词)
- forsaken [fə´seik] forsake的过去分词 (英语六级单词)
- grecian [´gri:ʃən] a.古希腊的 n.希腊人 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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