章节正文
eating gum-drops, came and looked freezingly at him
across the ice-bound steppes of the counter.
"Say, lady," he said, "have you got a song book
with this in it. Let's see bow it leads off --
"When the springtime comes well wander in the dale, love,
And whisper of those days of yore -- "
"I'm having a friend," explained Mr. McQuirk,
"laid up with a broken leg, and he sent me after
it. He's a devil for songs and poetry when he can't
get out to drink."
"We have not," replied the young woman, with un-
concealed contempt. "But there is a new song out
that begins this way:
"'Let us sit together in the old armchair;
And while the firelight flickers we'll be comfortable there.'"
There will be no profit in following Mr. "Tiger"
McQuirk through his further vagaries of that day
until he comes to stand knocking at the door of Annie
Maria Doyle. The goddess Eastre, it seems, had
guided his footsteps aright at last.
"Is that you now, Jimmy McQuirk?" she cried,
smiling through the opened door (Annie Maria had
never accepted the "Tiger"). "Well, whatever!"
"Come out in the ball," said Mr. McQuirk. "I
want to ask yer opinion of the weather - on the
level."
"Are you crazy, sure?" said Annie Maria.
"I am," said the "Tiger." "They've been telling
me all day there was spring in the air. Were they
liars? Or am I?"
"Dear me!" said Annie Maria -- "haven't you no-
ticed it? I can almost smell the violets. And the
green grass. Of course, there ain't any yet -- it's
just a kind of feeling, you know."
"That's what I'm getting at," said Mr. McQuirk.
I've had it. I didn't recognize it at first. I
thought maybe it was en-wee, contracted the other
day when I stepped above Fourteenth Street. But
the katzenjammer I've got don't spell violets. It
spells yer own name, Annie Maria, and it's you I
want. I go to work next Monday, and I make four
dollars a day. Spiel up, old girl -- do we make a
team?"
"Jimmy," sighed Annie Maria, suddenly disap-
pearing in his overcoat, "don't you see that spring
is all over the world right this minute?"
But you yourself remember how that day ended.
Beginning with so fine a promise of vernal things,
late in the afternoon the air chilled and an inch of
snow fell -- even so late in March. On Fifth Ave-
nue the ladies drew their winter furs close about
them. Only in the florists' windows could be per-
ceived any signs of the morning smile of the coming
goddess Eastre.
At six o'clock Herr Lutz began to close his shop.
He beard a well-known shout: "Hello, Dutch!"
"Tiger" McQuirk, in his shirt-sleeves, with his
hat on the back of his bead, stood outside in the
whirling snow, puffing at a black cigar.
"Donnerwetter!" shouted Lutz, "der vinter, he
has gome back again yet!"
"Yer a liar, Dutch," called back Mr. McQuirk,
with friendly geniality, it's springtime, by the
watch."
THE FOOL-KILLER
Down South whenever any one perpetrates some
particularly monumental piece of foolishness every-
body says: "Send for Jesse Holmes."
Jesse Holmes is the Fool-Killer. Of course he is a
myth, like Santa Claus and Jack Frost and General
Prosperity and all those concrete conceptions that
are supposed to represent an idea that Nature has
failed to embody. The wisest of the Southrons can-
not tell you whence comes the Fool-Killer's name;
but few and happy are the households from the Ro-
anoke to the Rio Grande in which the name of Jesse
Holmes has not been pronounced or invoked. Always
with a smile, and often with a tear, is he summoned
to his official duty. A busy man is Jesse Holmes.
I remember the clear picture of him that hung on
the walls of my fancy during my barefoot days when
I was dodging his oft-threatened devoirs. To me
be was a terrible old man, in gray clothes, with a
long, ragged, gray beard, and reddish, fierce eyes.
I looked to see him come stumping up the road in
a cloud of dust, with a white oak staff in his hand
and his shoes tied with leather thongs. I may
yet --
But this is a story, not a sequel.
I have taken notice with regret, that few stories
worth reading have been written that did not con-
tain drink of some sort. Down go the fluids, from
Arizona Dick's three fingers of red pizen to the in-
efficacious Oolong that nerves Lionel Montressor to
repartee in the "Dotty Dialogues." So, in such
good company I may introduce an absinthe drip --
one absinthe drip, dripped through a silver dripper,
orderly, opalescent, cool, green-eyed -- deceptive.
Kerner was a fool. Besides that, he was an artist
and my good friend. Now, if there is one thing on
earth utterly despicable to another, it is an artist
in the eyes of an author whose story he has illus-
trated. Just try it once. Write a story about a
mining camp in Idiho. Sell it. Spend the money,
and then, six months later, borrow a quarter (or
a dime), and buy the magazine containing it. You
find a full-page wash drawing of your hero, Black
Bill, the cowboy. Somewhere in your story you em-
ployed the word "horse." Aha! the artist has
grasped the idea. Black Bill has on the regulation
trousers of the M. F. H. of the Westchester County
Hunt. He carries a parlor rifle, and wears a mon-
ocle. In the distance is a section of Forty-second
Street during a search for a lost gas-pipe, and the
Taj Mahal, the famous mausoleum in India.
"Enough! I hated Kerner, and one day I met him
and we became friends. He was young and glori-
ously melancholy because his spirits were so high
and life bad so much in store for him. Yes, he was
almost riotously sad. That was his youth. When a
man begins to be hilarious in a sorrowful way you
can bet a million that he is dyeing his hair. Ker-
ner's hair was plentiful and carefully matted as an
artist's thatch should be. He was a cigaretteur, and
be audited his dinners with red wine. But, most of
all, be was a fool. And, wisely, I envied him, and
listened patiently while he knocked Velasquez and
Tintoretto. Once he told me that he liked a story of
mine that he bad come across in an anthology. He
described it to me, and I was sorry that Mr. Fitz-
James O'Brien was dead and could not learn of the
eulogy of his work. But mostly Kerner made few
breaks and was a consistent fool.
I'd better explain what I mean by that. There
was a girl. Now, a girl, as far as I am concerned,
is a thing that belongs in a seminary or an album;
but I conceded the existence of the animal in order
to retain Kerner's friendship. He showed me her
picture in a locket -- she was a blonde or a brunette
-- I have forgotten which. She worked in a factory
for eight dollars a week. Lest factories quote this
wage by way of vindication, I will add that the girl
bad worked for five years to reach that supreme ele-
vation of remuneration, beginning at $1.50 per week.
Kerner's father was worth a couple of millions
He was willing to stand for art, but he drew the
line at the factory girl. So Kerner disinherited his
father and walked out to a cheap studio and lived
on sausages for breakfast and on Farroni for dinner.
Farroni had the artistic soul and a line of credit for
painters and poets, nicely adjusted. Sometimes Ker-
rier sold a picture and bought some new tapestry, a
ring and a dozen silk cravats, and paid Farroni
two dollars on account.
One evening Kerner had me to dinner with himself
and the factory girl. They were to be married as
soon as Kerner could slosh paint profitably. As for
the ex-father's two millions -- pouf!
She was a wonder. Small and half-way pretty,
and as much at her ease in that cheap cafe as though
she were only in the Palmer House, Chicago, with a
souvenir spoon already safelyhidden in her shirt
waist. She was natural. Two things I noticed about
her especially. Her belt buckle was exactly in the
middle of her back, and she didn't tell us that a large
man with a ruby stick-pin had followed her up all the
way from Fourteenth Street. Was Kerner such a fool?
I wondered. And then I thought of the quantity of
striped cuffs and blue glass beads that $2,000,000
can buy for the heathen, and I said to myself that he
was. And then Elise -- certainly that was her name
told us, merrily, that the brown spot on her waist
was caused by her landlady knocking at the door
while she (the girl -- confound the English language)
was heating an iron over the gas jet, and she hid the
iron under the bedclothes until the coast was clear,
and there was the piece of chewing gum stuck
to it when she began to iron the waist, and -- well,
I wondered bow in the world the chewing gum
came to be there -- don't they ever stop chewing
it?
A while after that -- don't be impatient, the ab-
sinthe drip is coming now -- Kerner and I were dining
at Farroni's. A mandolin and a guitar were being
attacked; the room was full of smoke in nice, long
crinkly layers just like the artists draw the steam
from a plum pudding on Christmas posters, and a
lady in a blue silk and gasolined gauntlets was be-
ginning to bum an air from the Catskills.
"Kerner," said I, "you are a fool."
"Of course," said Kerner, "I wouldn't let her go
on working. Not my wife. What's the use to wait?
She's willing. I sold that water color of the Pali-
sades yesterday. We could cook on a two-burner gas
stove. You know the ragouts I can throw together?
Yes, I think we will marry next week."
"Kerner," said I, "you are a fool."
"Have an absinthe drip?" said Kerner, grandly.
"To-night you are the guest of Art in paying quan-
tities. I think we will get a flat with a bath."
"I never tried one -- I mean an absinthe drip,"
across the ice-bound steppes of the counter.
"Say, lady," he said, "have you got a song book
with this in it. Let's see bow it leads off --
"When the springtime comes well wander in the dale, love,
And whisper of those days of yore -- "
"I'm having a friend," explained Mr. McQuirk,
"laid up with a broken leg, and he sent me after
it. He's a devil for songs and poetry when he can't
get out to drink."
"We have not," replied the young woman, with un-
concealed contempt. "But there is a new song out
that begins this way:
"'Let us sit together in the old armchair;
And while the firelight flickers we'll be comfortable there.'"
There will be no profit in following Mr. "Tiger"
McQuirk through his further vagaries of that day
until he comes to stand knocking at the door of Annie
Maria Doyle. The goddess Eastre, it seems, had
guided his footsteps aright at last.
"Is that you now, Jimmy McQuirk?" she cried,
smiling through the opened door (Annie Maria had
never accepted the "Tiger"). "Well, whatever!"
"Come out in the ball," said Mr. McQuirk. "I
want to ask yer opinion of the weather - on the
level."
"Are you crazy, sure?" said Annie Maria.
"I am," said the "Tiger." "They've been telling
me all day there was spring in the air. Were they
liars? Or am I?"
"Dear me!" said Annie Maria -- "haven't you no-
ticed it? I can almost smell the violets. And the
green grass. Of course, there ain't any yet -- it's
just a kind of feeling, you know."
"That's what I'm getting at," said Mr. McQuirk.
I've had it. I didn't recognize it at first. I
thought maybe it was en-wee, contracted the other
day when I stepped above Fourteenth Street. But
the katzenjammer I've got don't spell violets. It
spells yer own name, Annie Maria, and it's you I
want. I go to work next Monday, and I make four
dollars a day. Spiel up, old girl -- do we make a
team?"
"Jimmy," sighed Annie Maria, suddenly disap-
pearing in his overcoat, "don't you see that spring
is all over the world right this minute?"
But you yourself remember how that day ended.
Beginning with so fine a promise of vernal things,
late in the afternoon the air chilled and an inch of
snow fell -- even so late in March. On Fifth Ave-
nue the ladies drew their winter furs close about
them. Only in the florists' windows could be per-
ceived any signs of the morning smile of the coming
goddess Eastre.
At six o'clock Herr Lutz began to close his shop.
He beard a well-known shout: "Hello, Dutch!"
"Tiger" McQuirk, in his shirt-sleeves, with his
hat on the back of his bead, stood outside in the
whirling snow, puffing at a black cigar.
"Donnerwetter!" shouted Lutz, "der vinter, he
has gome back again yet!"
"Yer a liar, Dutch," called back Mr. McQuirk,
with friendly geniality, it's springtime, by the
watch."
THE FOOL-KILLER
Down South whenever any one perpetrates some
particularly monumental piece of foolishness every-
body says: "Send for Jesse Holmes."
Jesse Holmes is the Fool-Killer. Of course he is a
myth, like Santa Claus and Jack Frost and General
Prosperity and all those concrete conceptions that
are supposed to represent an idea that Nature has
failed to embody. The wisest of the Southrons can-
not tell you whence comes the Fool-Killer's name;
but few and happy are the households from the Ro-
anoke to the Rio Grande in which the name of Jesse
Holmes has not been pronounced or invoked. Always
with a smile, and often with a tear, is he summoned
to his official duty. A busy man is Jesse Holmes.
I remember the clear picture of him that hung on
the walls of my fancy during my barefoot days when
I was dodging his oft-threatened devoirs. To me
be was a terrible old man, in gray clothes, with a
long, ragged, gray beard, and reddish, fierce eyes.
I looked to see him come stumping up the road in
a cloud of dust, with a white oak staff in his hand
and his shoes tied with leather thongs. I may
yet --
But this is a story, not a sequel.
I have taken notice with regret, that few stories
worth reading have been written that did not con-
tain drink of some sort. Down go the fluids, from
Arizona Dick's three fingers of red pizen to the in-
efficacious Oolong that nerves Lionel Montressor to
repartee in the "Dotty Dialogues." So, in such
good company I may introduce an absinthe drip --
one absinthe drip, dripped through a silver dripper,
orderly, opalescent, cool, green-eyed -- deceptive.
Kerner was a fool. Besides that, he was an artist
and my good friend. Now, if there is one thing on
earth utterly despicable to another, it is an artist
in the eyes of an author whose story he has illus-
trated. Just try it once. Write a story about a
mining camp in Idiho. Sell it. Spend the money,
and then, six months later, borrow a quarter (or
a dime), and buy the magazine containing it. You
find a full-page wash drawing of your hero, Black
Bill, the cowboy. Somewhere in your story you em-
ployed the word "horse." Aha! the artist has
grasped the idea. Black Bill has on the regulation
trousers of the M. F. H. of the Westchester County
Hunt. He carries a parlor rifle, and wears a mon-
ocle. In the distance is a section of Forty-second
Street during a search for a lost gas-pipe, and the
Taj Mahal, the famous mausoleum in India.
"Enough! I hated Kerner, and one day I met him
and we became friends. He was young and glori-
ously melancholy because his spirits were so high
and life bad so much in store for him. Yes, he was
almost riotously sad. That was his youth. When a
man begins to be hilarious in a sorrowful way you
can bet a million that he is dyeing his hair. Ker-
ner's hair was plentiful and carefully matted as an
artist's thatch should be. He was a cigaretteur, and
be audited his dinners with red wine. But, most of
all, be was a fool. And, wisely, I envied him, and
listened patiently while he knocked Velasquez and
Tintoretto. Once he told me that he liked a story of
mine that he bad come across in an anthology. He
described it to me, and I was sorry that Mr. Fitz-
James O'Brien was dead and could not learn of the
eulogy of his work. But mostly Kerner made few
breaks and was a consistent fool.
I'd better explain what I mean by that. There
was a girl. Now, a girl, as far as I am concerned,
is a thing that belongs in a seminary or an album;
but I conceded the existence of the animal in order
to retain Kerner's friendship. He showed me her
picture in a locket -- she was a blonde or a brunette
-- I have forgotten which. She worked in a factory
for eight dollars a week. Lest factories quote this
wage by way of vindication, I will add that the girl
bad worked for five years to reach that supreme ele-
vation of remuneration, beginning at $1.50 per week.
Kerner's father was worth a couple of millions
He was willing to stand for art, but he drew the
line at the factory girl. So Kerner disinherited his
father and walked out to a cheap studio and lived
on sausages for breakfast and on Farroni for dinner.
Farroni had the artistic soul and a line of credit for
painters and poets, nicely adjusted. Sometimes Ker-
rier sold a picture and bought some new tapestry, a
ring and a dozen silk cravats, and paid Farroni
two dollars on account.
One evening Kerner had me to dinner with himself
and the factory girl. They were to be married as
soon as Kerner could slosh paint profitably. As for
the ex-father's two millions -- pouf!
She was a wonder. Small and half-way pretty,
and as much at her ease in that cheap cafe as though
she were only in the Palmer House, Chicago, with a
souvenir spoon already safelyhidden in her shirt
waist. She was natural. Two things I noticed about
her especially. Her belt buckle was exactly in the
middle of her back, and she didn't tell us that a large
man with a ruby stick-pin had followed her up all the
way from Fourteenth Street. Was Kerner such a fool?
I wondered. And then I thought of the quantity of
striped cuffs and blue glass beads that $2,000,000
can buy for the heathen, and I said to myself that he
was. And then Elise -- certainly that was her name
told us, merrily, that the brown spot on her waist
was caused by her landlady knocking at the door
while she (the girl -- confound the English language)
was heating an iron over the gas jet, and she hid the
iron under the bedclothes until the coast was clear,
and there was the piece of chewing gum stuck
to it when she began to iron the waist, and -- well,
I wondered bow in the world the chewing gum
came to be there -- don't they ever stop chewing
it?
A while after that -- don't be impatient, the ab-
sinthe drip is coming now -- Kerner and I were dining
at Farroni's. A mandolin and a guitar were being
attacked; the room was full of smoke in nice, long
crinkly layers just like the artists draw the steam
from a plum pudding on Christmas posters, and a
lady in a blue silk and gasolined gauntlets was be-
ginning to bum an air from the Catskills.
"Kerner," said I, "you are a fool."
"Of course," said Kerner, "I wouldn't let her go
on working. Not my wife. What's the use to wait?
She's willing. I sold that water color of the Pali-
sades yesterday. We could cook on a two-burner gas
stove. You know the ragouts I can throw together?
Yes, I think we will marry next week."
"Kerner," said I, "you are a fool."
"Have an absinthe drip?" said Kerner, grandly.
"To-night you are the guest of Art in paying quan-
tities. I think we will get a flat with a bath."
"I never tried one -- I mean an absinthe drip,"
- wander [´wɔndə, ´wɑ:n:dər]
v.徘徊；流浪 (初中英语单词) - whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- poetry [´pəuitri] n.诗；诗意 (初中英语单词)
- goddess [´gɔdis] n.女神 (初中英语单词)
- well-known [,wel´nəun] a.著名的，众所周知的 (初中英语单词)
- whenever [wen´evə] conj.&ad.无论何时 (初中英语单词)
- supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- parlor [´pɑ:lə] n.客厅；起居室 (初中英语单词)
- mostly [´məustli] ad.主要地；多半；通常 (初中英语单词)
- existence [ig´zistəns] n.存在；生存；生活 (初中英语单词)
- retain [ri´tein] vt.保持；保留；留住 (初中英语单词)
- supreme [su:´pri:m, sju:-] a.最高的，无上的 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- nicely [naisli] ad.恰好地；谨慎地 (初中英语单词)
- safely [´seifli] ad.安全地；平安地 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
- contempt [kən´tempt] n.轻蔑；受辱；不顾 (高中英语单词)
- overcoat [´əuvəkəut] n.大衣 (高中英语单词)
- concrete [´kɔŋkri:t] a.具体的 n.混凝土 (高中英语单词)
- pronounced [prə´naunst] a.发出音的；显著的 (高中英语单词)
- ragged [´rægid] a.衣服破烂的 (高中英语单词)
- melancholy [´melənkəli] n.忧郁 a.忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- plentiful [´plentifəl] a.丰富的；多的 (高中英语单词)
- wisely [´waizli] ad.明智地，聪明地 (高中英语单词)
- patiently [´peiʃəntli] ad.有耐心地；坚韧地 (高中英语单词)
- studio [´stju:diəu] n.画室；照相室 (高中英语单词)
- artistic [ɑ:´tistik] a.艺术的；有美感的 (高中英语单词)
- half-way [´hɑ:fwei] ad.半途；几乎 (高中英语单词)
- heathen [´hi:ðən] n.异教徒 (高中英语单词)
- merrily [´merili] ad.欢乐地；愉快地 (高中英语单词)
- landlady [´lænd,leidi] n.女房东；女店主 (高中英语单词)
- confound [kən´faund] v.混淆；使惊惶 (高中英语单词)
- impatient [im´peiʃənt] a.不耐烦的，急躁的 (高中英语单词)
- pudding [´pudiŋ] n.布丁 (高中英语单词)
- springtime [´spriŋtaim] n.春季；青春期 (英语四级单词)
- embody [im´bɔdi] vt.体现；包括；包含 (英语四级单词)
- whence [wens] ad.从何处；从那里 (英语四级单词)
- reddish [´rediʃ] a.带红色的；微红的 (英语四级单词)
- drawing [´drɔ:iŋ] n.画图；制图；图样 (英语四级单词)
- sorrowful [´sɔrəuful] a.悲伤的，使人伤心的 (英语四级单词)
- thatch [θætʃ] n.茅草屋顶 (英语四级单词)
- consistent [kən´sistənt] a.一致的；始终如一的 (英语四级单词)
- tapestry [´tæpistri] n.挂毯 (英语四级单词)
- chicago [ʃi´kɑ:gəu] n.芝加哥 (英语四级单词)
- buckle [´bʌkəl] n.带扣 v.(用...)扣住 (英语四级单词)
- contracted [kən´træktid] a.收缩了的；缩略的 (英语六级单词)
- monumental [,mɔnju´mentl] a.纪念碑的；不朽的 (英语六级单词)
- foolishness [´fu:liʃnis] n.愚蠢 (英语六级单词)
- barefoot [´beəfut] ad.&a.=barefooted (英语六级单词)
- cowboy [´kaubɔi] n.牧童；牛仔 (英语六级单词)
- seminary [´seminəri] n.发源地；高等中学 (英语六级单词)
- palmer [´pɑ:mə] n.朝圣者；变戏法的人 (英语六级单词)
- guitar [gi´tɑ:] n.吉他，六弦琴 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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