 Beyond the bio by Kate Shuppin. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bologna Times. The bio curved like a crescent around the point of land on which Lafayette's cabin stood. Between the stream and the hut lay a big abandoned field where cattle were pastured when the bio supplied them with water enough. Through the woods that spread back into unknown regions, the woman had drawn an imaginary line and passed a circle she never stepped. This was the form of her only mania. She was now a large gaunt black woman, past 35. Her real name was Jacqueline, but everyone on the plantation called her Lafayette, because in childhood she had been frightened literally out of her senses and had never wholly regained them. It was when there had been skirmishing and sharpshooting all day in the woods. Evening was near when Petit Matré, black with powder and crimson with blood, had staggered into the cabin of Jacqueline's mother, his pursuers close at his heels. The sight had stunned her childish reason. She dwelt alone in her solitary cabin, for the rest of the quarters had long since been removed beyond her sight and knowledge. She had more physical strength than most men, and made her patch of cotton and corn and tobacco like the best of them. But of the world beyond the bio she had long known nothing save what her morbid fancy conceived. People at Bellissime had grown used to her and her way, and they thought nothing of it. Even when Ole Miss died, they did not wonder that Lafayette had not crossed the bio, but had stood upon her side of it, wailing and lamenting. Petit Matré was now the owner of Bellissime. He was a middle-aged man with a family of beautiful daughters about him, and a little son whom Lafayette loved as if he had been her own. She called him Cherie, and so did everyone else, because she did. None of the girls had ever been to her what Cherie was. They had each and all loved to be with her, and to listen to her wondrous stories of things that always happened beyond the bio. But none of them had stroked her black hand quite as Cherie did, nor rested their heads against her knees so confidingly, nor fallen asleep in her arms as he used to do. For Cherie hardly did such things now since he had become the proud possessor of a gun, and had had his black curls cut off. That summer, the summer Cherie gave Lafayette two black curls tied with a knot of red ribbon. The water ran so low in the bio that even the little children of Bellissime were able to cross it on foot, and the cattle were sent to pass her down by the river. Lafayette was sorry when they were gone, for she loved these dumb companions well, and liked to feel that they were there and to hear them browsing by night up to her own enclosure. It was Saturday afternoon when the fields were deserted. The men had flocked to a neighboring village to do their week's trading, and the women were occupied with household affairs. Lafayette as well as the others. It was then she mended and washed, her hand full of clothes, scoured her house, and did her baking. In this last employment she never forgot Cherie. Today she had fashioned croquet nores of the most fantastic and alluring shapes for him. So when she saw the boy come trudging across the old field with his gleaming little new rifle on his shoulder, she called out gaily to him, Cherie, Cherie! But Cherie did not need the summons, for he was coming straight to her. His pockets all bulged out with almonds and raisins, and an orange that he had secured for her from the very fine dinner which had been given that day up at his father's house. He was a sunny-faced youngster of ten. When he had emptied his pockets, Lafayette patted his round red cheek, wiped his soiled hands on her apron, and smoothed his hair. Then she watched him as, with his cakes in his hand, he crossed her strip of cotton back of the cabin and disappeared into the wood. He had boasted of things he was going to do with his gun out there. You think they got plenty deer in the wood, Lafayette? He had inquired with the calculating air of an experienced hunter. Non-non! the woman laughed. Don't you look for no deer, Cherie? That's too big. But you bring Lafayette one good fat squirrel for her dinner tomorrow, and she's going to be satisfied. One squirrel and a bite. I'll bring you more, and one, Lafayette, he had boasted pompously as he went away. When the woman, an hour later, heard the report of the boy's rifle close to the wood's edge, she would have thought nothing of it, if a sharp cry of distress had not followed the sound. She withdrew her arms from the tub of suds, in which they had been plunged, dried them upon her apron, and as quickly as her trembling limbs would bear her, hurried to the spot, once the ominous report had come. It was as she feared. There she found Cherie stretched upon the ground, with his rifle beside him. He moaned piteously. I'm dead, Lafayette. I'm dead. I'm gone. Non-non! she exclaimed, resolutely, as she knelt beside him. Put your arm around Lafayette's neck, Cherie. That's nothing. That's going to be nothing. She lifted him in her powerful arms. Cherie had carried his gun muzzle downward. He had stumbled. He did not know how. He only knew that he had a ball lodged somewhere in his leg, and he thought that his end was at hand. Now, with his head upon the woman's shoulder, he moaned and wept with pain and fright. Oh, Lafayette! Lafayette! It hurts so bad. I can't stand it, Lafayette. Don't cry, mon baby. Mon baby. Mon Cherie. The woman spoke soothingly as she covered the ground with long strides. Lafayette, going mine-yoo. Dr. Bonfield, come make Mon Cherie well again. She had reached the abandoned field. As she crossed it with her precious burden, she looked constantly and restlessly from side to side. A terrible fear was upon her, the fear of the world beyond the bio, the morbid and insane dread she had been under since childhood. When she was at the bio's edge, she stood there and shouted for help, as if a life depended upon it. Oh, petit maitre! Petit maitre! Venez dans! Oh, c'est corps! Oh, c'est corps! No voice responded. Cherie's hot tears were scalding her neck. She called for each and every one upon the place, and still no answer came. She shouted. She wailed. But whether her voice remained unheard or unheeded, no reply came to her frenzy cries. And all the while Cherie moaned and wept and entreated to be taken home to his mother. Lafayette gave a last despairing look around her. Extreme terror was upon her. She clasped the child close against her breast, where he could feel her heart beat like a muffled hammer. Then, shutting her eyes, she ran suddenly down the shallow bank of the bio and never stopped till she had climbed the opposite shore. She stood there, quivering an instant as she opened her eyes. Then she plunged into the footpath through the trees. She spoke no more to Cherie, but muttered constantly. Bon Dieu, et à petit la folie! Bon Dieu, et à petit moi! Instinct seemed to guide her. When the pathway spread clear and smooth enough before her, she again closed her eyes tightly against the sight of that unknown and terrifying world. The child, playing in some wades, caught sight of her as she neared the quarters. The little one uttered a cry of dismay. La folie! she screamed in her piercing trouble. La folie, don't cross the bio! Quickly the cry passed down the line of cabins. Yande, la folie, don't cross the bio! Children, old men, old women, young ones with infants in their arms, flocked to doors and windows to see this awe-inspiring spectacle. Most of them shouted with superstitious dread of what it might portend. She told Cherie some of them shouted. Some of the more daring gathered about her and followed at her heels, only to fall back with new terror when she turned to her distorted face upon them. Her eyes were bloodshot, and the saliva had gathered in a white foam on her black lips. Someone had run ahead of her to where Petit Maitre sat with his family and gasped upon the gallery. Petit Maitre, la folie, don't cross the bio! Look her! Look her, Yande, totine Cherie! The startling intimation was the first which they had of the woman's approach. She was now near at hand. She walked with long strides. Her eyes were fixed desperately before her, and she breathed heavily as a tired ox. At the foot of the stairway, which she could not have mounted, she laid the boy in his father's arms. Then the world that had looked red had la folie suddenly turned black, like that day she had seen powder and blood. She reeled for an instant. Before a sustaining arm could reach her, she fell heavily to the ground. When la folie regained consciousness, she was at home again, in her own cabin and upon her own bed. The moon rays, streaming in through the open door and windows, gave what light was needed to the old black mammy who stood at the table, concocting a tisane of fragrant herbs. It was very late. Others who had come and found that the stupor clung to her had gone again. Petit Maitre had been there, and with him Dr. Bonfièd, who said that la folie might die, but death had passed her by. The voice was very clear and steady, with which she spoke to Tante Lisette, brewing her tisane there in a corner. If you will give me one good drink to say, Tante Lisette, I believe I'm going to sleep me. And she did sleep so soundly, so healthfully, that old Lisette, without compunction, stole softly away to creep back through the moonlit fields to her own cabin in the new quarters. The first touch of the cool gray morning awoke la folie. She arose calmly as if no tempest had shaken and threatened her existence but yesterday. She dawned her new blue cotton-aid and white apron, for she remembered that this was Sunday. When she had made for herself a cup of strong black coffee and drunk it with relish, she quitted the cabin and walked across the old familiar field to the bio's edge again. She did not stop there as she had always done before, but crossed with a long steady stride, as if she had done this all her life. When she had made her way through the brush and scrub cottonwood trees that lined the opposite bank, she found herself upon the border of a field where the white bursting cotton with a dew upon it gleamed for acres and acres like frosted silver in the early dawn. La folie drew a long deep breath as she gazed across the country. She walked slowly and uncertainly, like one who hardly knows how, looking about her as she went. The cabins that yesterday had sent a clamor of voices to pursue her were quiet now. No one was yet a stir at Bellissime. Only the birds that darted here and there from hedges were awake and singing their matins. When La folie came to the broad stretch of velvet tealon that surrounded the house, she moved slowly and with delight over the springy turf that was delicious beneath her tread. She stopped to find whence came those perfumes that were sailing her senses with memories from a time far gone. There they were, stealing up to her from the thousand blue violets that peeped out from green, luxuriant beds. There they were, showering down from the big waxen bells of the magnolias far above her head and from the jessamine clumps around her. There were roses, too, without number. To right and left, palm spread in broad and graceful curves. It all looked like enchantment beneath the sparkling sheen of dew. When La folie had slowly and cautiously mounted the many steps that led up to the veranda, she turned to look back at the perilous ascent she had made. Then she caught sight of the river, bending like a silver bow at the foot of Bellissime. Exaltation possessed her soul. La folie wrapped softly upon a door near her hand. Cherie's mother soon cautiously opened it quickly and cleverly. She dissembled the astonishment she felt at seeing La folie. Ah, La folie, it is you so early. We, madam, I come ask how my polar Cherie do this morning. He is feeling easier. Thank you, La folie. Dr. Bonfield says it would be nothing serious. He's sleeping now. Will you come back when he awakes? No, madam. I'm going to wait, yaar, till Cherie wake up. La folie seated herself upon the topmost step of the veranda. A look of wonder and deep content crept into her face as she watched for the first time the sun rise upon the new, the beautiful world beyond the bio. End of Beyond the Bio. This recording is in the public domain. The Canvasser's Tale by Mark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Greg Marguerite. The Canvasser's Tale by Mark Twain. Poor sad-eyed stranger. There was that about his humble mean, his tired look, his decayed gentility clothes that almost reached the mustard seed of charity that still remained remote and lonely in the empty vastness of my heart. Nonwithstanding, I observed a portfolio under his arm and said to myself, Behold! Providence hath delivered his servant into the hands of another Canvasser. Well, these people always get one interested. Before I knew how it came about, this one was telling me his history and I was all attention and sympathy. He told it something like this. My parents died, alas, when I was a little sinless child. My uncle Ethuriel took me to his heart and reared me as his own. He was my only relative in the wide world, but he was good and rich and generous. He reared me in the lap of luxury. I knew no want that money could satisfy. In the fullness of time I was graduated and went with two of my servants, my Chamberlain and my valet, to travel in foreign countries. During four years I flitted upon careless wing amid the beauteous gardens of the distant strand. If you will permit this form of speech in one whose tongue was ever attuned to Posey, and indeed I so speak with confidence as one unto his kind, for I perceive by your eyes that you too, sir, are gifted with the divine inflation. In those far lands I reveled in the ambrosial food that fructifies the soul, the mind, the heart. But of all things, that which most appealed to my inborn aesthetic taste was the prevailing custom there among the rich of making collections of elegant and costly rarities, dainty objects devere too, and in an evil hour I tried to uplift my uncle Ethuriel to a plain of sympathy with this exquisite employment. I wrote and told him of one gentleman's vast collection of shells, another's noble collection of Mirsham pipes, another's elevating and refining collection of undecipherable autographs, another's priceless collection of old china, another's enchanting collection of postage stamps, and so forth and so on. Soon my letters yielded fruit. My uncle began to look about for something to make a collection of. You may know perhaps how fleetly a taste like this dilates. His soon became a raging fever, though I knew it not. He began to neglect his great pork business. Presently he wholly retired and turned an elegant leisure into a rabid search for curious things. His wealth was vast, and he spared it not. First he tried cowbells. He made a collection of which filled five large salons and comprehended all of the different sorts of cowbells that ever had been contrived, save one. That one, an antique and the only specimen extant, was possessed by another collector. My uncle'd offered enormous sums for it, but the gentleman would not sell. Doubtless you know what necessarily resulted. A true collector attaches no value to a collection that is not complete. His great heart breaks, he sells his hoard, he turns his mind to some field that seems unoccupied. Thus did my uncle. He next tried brick bats. After piling up a vast and intensely interesting collection, the former difficulty supervened. His great heart broke again. He sold out his soul's idol to the retired brewer who possessed the missing brick. Then he tried flint hatchets and other implements of primeval man, but by and by discovered that the factory where they were made was supplying other collectors as well as himself. He tried Aztec inscriptions and stuffed whales. Another failure after incredible labor and expense. When his collection seemed at last perfect, a stuffed whale arrived from Greenland and an Aztec inscription from the Cundurango regions of Central America that made all former specimens insignificant. My uncle hastened to secure these noble gems. He got the stuffed whale, but another collector got the inscription. A real Cundurango as possibly you know is a possession of such supreme value that when once a collector gets it he will rather part with his family than with it. So my uncle sold out and saw his darlings go forth never more to return and his coal-black hair turned white as snow in a single night. Now he waited and thought. He knew another disappointment might kill him. He was resolved that he would choose things next time that no other man was collecting. He carefully made up his mind and once more entered the field this time to make a collection of echoes. Of what, said I? Echoes, sir. His first purchase was an echo in Georgia that repeated four times. His next was a six-repeater in Maryland. His next was a thirteen-repeater in Maine. His next was a nine-repeater in Kansas. His next was a twelve-repeater in Tennessee, which he got cheap, so to speak, because it was out of repair, a portion of the crag which reflected it having tumbled down. He believed he could repair it at a cost of a few thousand dollars, and by increasing the elevation with masonry, treble the repeating capacity. But the architect who undertook the job had never built an echo before, and so he utterly spoiled this one. Before he meddled with it, it used to talk back like a mother-in-law, but now it was only fit for the deaf and dumb asylum. Well, next he bought a lot of cheap, little double-barreled echoes, scattered around over various states and territories. He got them at twenty percent off by taking the lot. Then he bought a perfect, gatling gun of an echo in Oregon, and it cost a fortune, I can tell you. You may know, sir, that in the echo market the scale of prices is cumulative, like the carrot scale in diamonds. In fact, the same phraseology is used. A single-carat echo is worth but ten dollars over and above the value of the land it is on. A two-carat or double-barreled echo is worthy of thirty dollars. A five-carat is worth nine hundred and fifty. The ten-carat is worth thirteen thousand. My uncle's Oregon echo, which he called the Great Pit Echo, was a twenty-two-carat gem, and cost him two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars. They threw the land in, for it was four hundred miles from a settlement. Well, in the meantime my path was a path of roses. I was the accepted suitor of the only and lovely daughter of an English earl, and was beloved to distraction. In that dear presence I swam in seas of bliss. The family were content for it was known that I was sole heir to an uncle held to be worth five millions of dollars. However, none of us knew that my uncle had become a collector, at least in anything more than a small way for aesthetic amusement. Now gathered the clouds above my unconscious head. That divine echo, since known throughout the world as the Great Coenor or Mountain of Repetitions, was discovered. You could utter a word and it would talk back at you for fifteen minutes when the day was otherwise quiet. But, behold, another fact came to light at the same time. Another echo collector was in the field. The two rushed to make the peerless purchase. The property consisted of a couple of small hills with a shallow swale between, out yonder, among the back settlements of New York State. Both men arrived on the ground at the same time, and neither knew whether the other was there. The echo was not all owned by one man, a person by the name of Williamson Boulevard Jarvis owned the East Hill, and a person by the name of Harbison J. Bledsoe owned the West Hill. The swale between was the dividing line. So while my uncle was buying Jarvis's Hill for three million two hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars, the other party was buying Bledsoe's Hill for a shade over three million. As a result, why, the noblest collection of echoes on earth was forever and ever incomplete since it possessed but the one half of the king echo of the universe. Neither man was content with this divided ownership, yet neither would sell to the other. There were joing and bickering and heart burnings, and at last that other collector with a malignity which only a collector can ever feel toward a man and a brother proceeded to cut down his hill. As long as he could not have the echo he was resolved that nobody should have it. He would remove his hill and then there would be nothing to reflect my uncle's echo. My uncle remonstrated with him, but the man said, I own one end of this echo. I choose to kill my end. You must take care of your own end yourself. Well, my uncle got an injunction put on him. The other man appealed and fought it in a higher court. They carried it on up, near to the Supreme Court of the United States. It made no end of trouble there. Two of the judges believed that an echo was personal property because it was impalpable to sight and touch, and yet was purchasable, salable, and consequently taxable. Two others believed that an echo was real estate because it was manifestly attached to the land and was not removable from place to place. Other of the judges contended that the echo was not real estate because it was finally decided that the echo was property, that the hills were property, that the two men were separate and independent owners of the two hills, but tenants in common in the echo. Therefore defendant was at full liberty to cut down his hill since it belonged solely to him, but must give bonds in $3 million as indemnity for damages which might result to my uncle's half of the echo. This decision also would reflect his part of the echo without defendant's consent. He must use only his own hill. If his part of the echo would not go under these circumstances it was sad, of course, but the court could find no remedy. The court also debarred defendant from using my uncle's hill to reflect his end of the echo without consent. You see the grand result. Neither man would give consent, and so that astonishing and most noble echo had to cease from its great powers that day, that magnificent property is tied up and unsalable. A week before my wedding day, while I was still swimming in bliss and the nobility were gathering from far and near to honor our espousals, came news of my uncle's death, and also a copy of his will making me his sole heir. He was gone, alas, my dear benefactor was no more. The thought surcharges my heart even at this remote day. I handed the will to the Earl. I read it for the blinding tears. The Earl read it. Then he sternly said, Sir, do you call this wealth? But doubtless you do in your inflated country. Sir, you are left sole heir to a vast collection of echoes. If a thing can be called a collection that is scattered far and wide over the huge length and breadth of the American continent. Sir, this is not all. You are head and ears in debt. There is not an echo in the lot but has a mortgage on it. Sir, I am not a hard man. But I must look to my child's interest. If you had but one echo which you could honestly call your own if you had but one echo which was free from encumbrance so that you could retire to it with my child and by humble painstaking industry cultivate and improve it and thus rest from it a maintenance. I would not say you nay. But I cannot marry my child to a beggar. Leave his side, my darling. Go, sir. Take your mortgage-ridden echoes and quit my sight for ever. My noble celestine clung to me in tears with loving arms and swore she would willingly, nay, gladly marry me, though I had not an echo in the world. But it could not be. We return asunder, she to pine and die within the twelve month, eye to toil life's long journey sad and alone, praying daily, hourly, for that release which shall join us together again in that dear realm where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. Now, sir, if you will be so kind as to look at these maps and plans in my portfolio, I am sure I can sell you an echo for less money than any man in the trade. Now, this one, which cost my uncle ten dollars thirty years ago and is one of the sweetest things in Texas, I will let you have for let me interrupt you, I said. I have bought a sewing machine which I did not want. I have bought a map which is mistaken in all its details. I have bought a clock which will not go. I have bought a moth poison which the moths prefer to any other beverage. I have bought no end of useless inventions, and now I have had enough of this foolishness. I would not have one of your echoes if you were to give it to me. I would not let it stay on the place. I always hate a man that tries to make me run. Now take your collection and move on. Let us not have bloodshed. But he only smiled a sad sweet smile and got out some more diagrams. You know the result perfectly well, because you know that when you have once opened the door to a canvasser, the trouble is done and you have got to suffer defeat. I compromised with this man at the end of an intolerable hour. I bought two double salable because it only spoke German. He said she was a perfect polyglot once, but somehow her palate got down. End of The Canvasser's Tale by Mark Twain. A Christmas Fantasy with a Moral by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, auto-volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Linda Ferguson. A Christmas Fantasy with a Moral by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Her name was Mildred Wentworth and she lived on the slope of Beacon Hill in one of those old-fashioned swellfront houses which had the inestimable privilege of looking upon Boston Common. It was Christmas afternoon and she had gone up to the blue room on the fourth floor in order to make a careful inspection in solitude of the various gifts that had been left in her slender stocking and at her bedside the previous night. Mildred was in some respect a very old child for her age, which she describes as being half past seven, and had a habit of spending hours alone in the large front chamber occupied by herself in the Governor's. This day the Governor's had gone to keep Christmas with her own family in South Boston and it's so chance that Mildred had been left to dispose of her time as she pleased during the entire afternoon. She was well content to have the opportunity for fortune had treated her magnificently and it was deep satisfaction after the excitement of the morning to sit in the middle of that spacious room with its three windows overlooking the pearl-crusted trees in the Common and examine her treasures without any chance of interruption. The looms of Kashmir and the workshops of Germany, the patient Chinaman and the irresponsible polar bear had a light contributed to those treasures. Among other articles was a small square box covered with mottled paper and having an outlandish mysterious aspect as if it belonged to a magician. When you loosened the catch of this box, possibly supposing it to contain bonbons of a superior quality, there sprang forth a terrible little monster with a drifting white beard like a snowstorm, round emerald green eyes and a pessimistic expression of countenance generally as though it was in reading Tallstoy or Shropenhauer. This abrupt personage whose family name was Hilliogabalus was known for simplicity's sake as Jumping Jack and though the explanation of the matter is beset with difficulties, it is not to be concealed that he held a higher place in the esteem of Miss Wentworth than any of her other possessions, not excluding a tall wax doll, fantasy echel, with a pallid complexion and a profusion of blonde hair. Titanium was not more in love with Nick Bottom, the weaver, than Mildred with Jumping Jack. It was surely not his personal beauty that won her, for he had none. It was not his intellect, for intellect does not take up its abode in a forehead of such singular construction as that of Jumping Jack, but whatever the secret charm was, it worked. On a more realistic stage than this, we see analogous cases every day. Perhaps Oberon still exercises his fairy-craft in our material world and scatters at will upon the eyelids of mortals the magic distillation of that little western flower which will make, or man or woman madly dot, upon the next live creature that it sees. For an hour or so Mildred amused herself sufficiently by shutting Hilly Agabalus up in the box and letting him spring out again. Then she grew weary of the diversion and finally began to lose patience with her elastic companion because he was unable to crowd himself into the box and undo the latch with his own fingers. This was extremely unreasonable, but so was Mildred made. How tedious you are! she cried at last. You dull little old man, I don't see how I ever came to like you. I don't like you any more. With your glass eye and your silly pink mouth always open and never saying the least thing. What do you mean, sir, by standing and staring at me in that tiresome way? You look enough like Dobbs the Butcher to be his brother or to be Dobbs himself. I wonder you don't up and say steaks or chops, Mum. Dear me, I wish you really had some life in you and couldn't move about and talk with me and make yourself agreeable to be alive. Mildred gave a little laugh at her own absurdity and then, being an imaginative creature, came presently to regard the idea as not altogether absurd and finally as not absurd at all. If a bow that has been frozen to death or winter can put forth blossoms in the spring, why might not an inanimate object which already possessed many of the surface attributes of humanity and possibly some of the internal mechanism add to itself the crowning gift of speech? In view of the daily phenomena of existence would that be so very astonishing? Of course the problem took a simpler shape than this in Mildred's unsophisticated thought. She folded her hands in her lap and two and fro reflected how pleasant it would be if Jumpingjack or her doll could come to life like the marble lady in the play and do some of the talking. What wonderful stories Jumpingjack would have to tell, for example. He must have had no end of remarkable adventures before he lost his mind. Probably the very latest intelligence from Lilliput was in his possession and perhaps he was even now vainly trying to deliver himself of it. His fixed open mouth hinted as such. The land of the pygmies in the heart of darkest Africa just then widely discussed in the newspapers was of course familiar ground to him. How interesting it would be to learn at first hand of the manners and customs of those little folk. Doubtless he had been a great traveller in foreign parts. The label in German text on the bottom of his box showed that he had recently come from Munich. Munich! What magic there was a word. As Mildred rocked to and fro, her active little brain weaving the most grotesque fancies, a drowsiness stole over her. She was crueening to herself fainter and fainter and every instant drifting nearer to the shadowy reefs of the western coast of nowhere, when she heard a soft inexplicable rustling sound close at her side. Mildred lifted her head quickly, just in time to behold, fantasy eckled describe a graceful curve there, and land lightly in the midst of her best Dresden China tea-set. Ho-ho! he cried in a voice preternaturally gruff for an individual not above five inches in height. Ho-ho! and he immediately began to throw Mildred's cups and saucers and plates all about the apartment. Oh, you horrid wicked little man! cried Mildred starting to her feet. Stop it! Oh, you crossed little girl! returned the dwarf with his family, Leah. You surprise me! Another plate crashed against the blue-flowered wallpaper. Stop it! She repeated, and then to herself, it's a mercy I waked up just when I did. Patience, my child! I'm coming there shortly to smoo your hair and kiss you. Do! screamed Mildred, stooping to pick up a large Japanese crystal which lay absorbing the wintry sunlight at her feet. When Helio Gabalus saw that, he retired to the far side of his tenement, peeping cautiously over the top on the corner, and disappearing altogether whenever Mildred threatened to throw the crystal at him. Now Miss Wentworth was naturally a courageous girl, and when she perceived that the pygmy was afraid of her, she resolved to make an example of him. He was such a small affair that it really did not seem worthwhile to treat him with such ceremony. He had started her at first. His manners had been so very violent, but now that her pulse had gone down she regarded him with calm curiosity as she would do next. Listen! he said presently in a queer, deferential way as he partly emerged from his hiding place. I came to request the hand of Mademoiselle Yonder, and nodding his head in the direction of Bondella the doll, he retreated bashfully. Her! cried Mildred aghast. You are very nice, but I can't marry out of my own set, you know. Observed Helio Gabalus, invisible behind his breastwork, this shyness was mere assimilation of Mildred's subsequent behaviour proved. Who would have thought it? murmured Mildred to herself, and as she glanced suspiciously at Bondella, sitting bolt upright between the windows with her back against the mop-board, Mildred fancied that she could almost detect a faint rosy air too stealing into the waxen cheek. Who would have thought it? And then, addressing Jumping Jack, she cried, come here directly, you audacious person! And she stamped her foot in a manner most suitors. But Helio Gabalus, who had now seated himself on the lid of his box and showed no trace of his late diffidence, smiled so persiliously as he twisted off a bit of wire that protruded from the heel of one of his boots. This effrontery increased Miss Wentworth's indignation and likewise rather embarrassed her. Perhaps he was not afraid of her after all, in which case he was worth nothing as an example. I will brush you off and tread on you! She observed tentatively if she were addressing an insect. Oh, indeed! he rejoined derisively crossing his legs. I will! cried Mildred, making an impulsive dash at him. Though taken at a disadvantage, the mannequin eluded her with surprising ease. His agility was such as to render it impossible to determine whether he was an old young man or a very young old man. Mildred eyed him doubtfully for a moment and then gave chase. Away went the quaint little figure, cutting under the brass bedstead, now dodging round the legs of the table and now slipping between the feet of his pursuer at the instant she was on the point of laying hand on him. Owing doubtless to some peculiarity of his articulation, each movement of his limbs was accompanied by a rustling wiry sound, like the faint reverberation of a banjo string somewhere in the distance. Yellowgabalus may have been a person with no great conversational gift, but his gymnastic acquirements were of the first order. Mildred not only could not catch him, but she could not restrain the mannequin from meanwhile doing all kinds of desultory mischief. For in the midst of his course he would pause to overturn her tin kitchen or shy a plate across the room or give a vicious twitch to the lovely golden hair of Blondella in spite of, perhaps inconsequence of, his recent tender advances. It was plain that in eluding Mildred he was prompted by Caprice rather than by fear. As she reflected, I shall not have anything left, if I could only get the dreadful little creature into a corner. There goes my terrine! What shall I do? To quit the room even for a moment in order to call for assistance at the head of the staircase, where more over her voice was not likely to reach anyone, was to leave everything at the mercy of that small demon. Mildred was out of breath with running and ready to burst into tears with exasperation when a different mode of procedure suggested itself to her. She would make believe that she was no longer angry and possibly she could accomplish by cunning what she had failed to compass by violence. She would consent at least seem to consent to let him marry Blondella though he had lately given no signs of very fervent attachment. Beyond this Mildred had no definite scheme when the story of the fisherman and the evil aphorite flashed upon her memory from the pages of Nights. Her dilemma was exactly that of the unlucky fisherman and her line of action should be the same, with such modifications as the exigencies might demand. As in his case too there was no time to be lost. An expression of ineffable benevolence and serenity instantly overspread the features of Miss Wentworth. She leaned against the wardrobe and regarded jumping jack with a look of gentle reproach. I thought she were going to be like softly. Ain't I interesting? Asked the goblin with a touch of pardonable sensitiveness. No, said Mildred Candily. You are not. Perhaps you try to be. That's something to be sure. Though it's not everything. Oh, I don't want to touch you. She went on with an indifferent toss of her curls. How old are you? Ever so old and ever so young. Truly, how very odd to be both at once. Never tried. I'm afraid your parents didn't bring you up very well, reflected Mildred. I speak all languages, the little folk of every age and every country understand me. You're a great traveller, then. I should say so. You don't seem to carry much baggage about with you. I suppose you belong somewhere and keep a close there. I really should like to know where you came from if it's all the same to you. Out of that box, my dove, replied Jumping Jack, having become affable in his turn. Never! exclaimed Mildred with a delightful air of incredulity. I hope I may die, declared Heliogabalus, laying one hand on the left breast of his mainspring. I don't believe it, said Mildred confidently. Ho-ho! You are too tall and too wide and too fluffy. I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but you are fluffy, and I just want to know what you are. No, I don't believe it. You don't, don't you? Behold! and placing both hands on the floor Heliogabalus described a circle in the air and neatly landed himself in the box. He was no sooner in than Mildred clapped down the lid and seated herself upon it victoriously. In the suddenness of her movement she had necessarily neglected to fasten the catch, but that was a detail that could be attended to later. Meanwhile she was mistrust of the situation and one thing was resolved. Jumping Jack was never to jump again. Tomorrow he should be thrown into the Charles at the foot of Mount Vernon Street in order that the tide might carry him out to sea. What would she not have given if she couldn't have sealed him up with the talismanic seal of Solomon which held the cruel marriage so securely in his brazen casket? Of course it was not in Mildred's blood to resist the temptation to tease her captive a little. Now, Mr. Jack, I guess I've got you where you belong. If you're not an old man this very minute you will be when you get out. You wanted to carry off my blondella, did you? The idea. I hope you're quite comfortable. Let me out, growled Helio Gabalus in his deepest base. I couldn't think of it, dear. You are one of those little boys that shouldn't be either seen or heard and I don't want to speak to you again for I'm sitting on your head and your voice goes right through me. So, you will please remember not to speak unless you are spoken to and Mildred broke into the merriest laugh imaginable recollecting how many times she herself had been extinguished by the same instructions. But Mildred's triumph was premature for the little man in the box was as strong as a giant in a dye museum and now that he had fully recovered his breath he began pushing in a most systematic manner with his head and shoulders and Mildred, to her great consternation found herself being slowly lifted up into the box, do what she might. In a minute or two more she must inevitably fall off and jumping jack would have her and what mercy could she expect at his hands after her treatment of him. She was lost. Mildred stretched out her arms in despair, gave a shriek and opened her eyes which had been all the while as tightly shut as a couple of morning glories at sundown. She was sitting on a rug in the middle of the room. Though the window panes were still flush from the summer of the winter sunset the iridescent lights had faded out in the Japanese crystal at her feet. She was not anywhere near the little imp. There he was over by the fireplace staring at nothing in his usual senseless fashion. Not a piece of crockery had been broken, not a chair upset and Blondella, the too fascinating Blondella had not had a single dress disarranged. Mildred drew a long breath of relief. What had happened? Had she been dreaming? She did not answer the question, but as she abstractly shook out the creases in the folds of her skirt she remarked to herself that she did not care on the whole to have any of her things come to life, certainly not jumping jack. Just then the splintering of an icicle on the window ledge outside sent a faint whiteness into her cheek and caused her to throw a quick apprehensive glance towards the fireplace. After an instant's hesitation Mildred unconsciously dragged Blondella by the hair all softly from the room where the spectres of the toilet were beginning to gather rather menacingly and went downstairs to join the family and relate her strange adventure. The analysis of Miss Wentworth's dream if it were a dream for later on she declared it was not and hurriedly gave Helio Gabalus to an unpleasant small boy who lived next door. The analysis of her dream I repeat show strong traces of a moral. Indeed the residuum is purely of that stringent quality. Helio Gabalus must be accepted as the symbol of an ill-considered desire realised. The earnestness with which Miss Wentworth invoked the phantasm and the misery that came of it are a common experience. Painfully to attain possession of what we do not want and then painfully to waste our days in attempting to rid ourselves of it seems to be a part of our discipline here below. I know a great many excellent persons who are spending the latter moity of life in the endeavour to get their particular jumping jack snugly back into its box again. End of A Christmas Fantasy with a Moral Recording by Linda Ferguson The following adventure happened to me about 1882. I had just taken the train and settled down in a corner hoping that I should be left alone when the door suddenly opened again and I heard a voice say Take care, Monsieur. We are just at a crossing. The step is very high. Another voice answered That's all right, Laurent. I have a firm hold on the handle. Then I heard a voice say Take care, Monsieur. I have a firm hold on the handle. Then a head appeared and two hands seized the leather straps hanging on either side of the door and slowly pulled up an enormous body whose feet, striking the step sounded like two canes. When the man had hoisted his torso into the compartment I noticed at the loose edge of his trousers the end of a wooden leg which was soon followed by its mate. A head appeared behind this traveller Are you all right, Monsieur? Yes, my boy. Then here are your packages and crutches. And a servant, who looked like an old soldier climbed in, carrying in his arms stacks of bundles wrapped in black and yellow paper and carefully tied. He placed one after the other in the net over his master's head. Then he said, there, Monsieur, that is all. There are five of them. The candy, the doll, the drum, the gun and the pâté de foie gras. Thank you, Laurent. Good health! The man closed the door and walked away and I looked at my neighbor. He was about thirty-five, although his hair was almost white. He wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. He had a heavy mustache and was quite stout with the stoutness of a strong and active man who has kept motionless on account of some infirmity. He wiped his brow, sighed and, looking me full on the face, he asked, does smoking annoy you? No, Monsieur. Surely I knew that eye, that voice, that face. But when and where had I seen them? I had certainly met that man, spoken to him, shaken his hand. That was a long, long time ago. It was lost in the haze wherein the mind seems to feel almost blindly for the memories and pursues them like fleam phantoms without being able to seize them. He, too, was observing me, staring me out of countenance with the persistence of a man who remembers slightly but not completely our eyes, embarrassed by this persistent contact, turned away. Then, after a few minutes drawn together again by the obscure and tenacious will of working memory, they met once more. And I said, Monsieur, instead of staring at each other for an hour or so, would it not be better to try to discover where we had known each other? My neighbor answered graciously. You are quite right, Monsieur. I name myself. I am Henri Bonclair, a magistrate. He hesitated for a few minutes. Then, with the vague look and voice which accompanied great mental tension, he said, Oh, I remember perfectly. I met you twelve years ago, before the war, in Pont Selde. Yes, Monsieur. Ah, ah, you are a lieutenant Révalier. Yes, I was Captain Révalier, even up to the time when I lost my feet, both of them together from one cannonball. Now that we knew each other's identity, we looked at each other again. I remember perfectly the handsome, slender youth who led the Cotidians with such frenzied dildy and gracefulness that he had been nicknamed the Fury. Going back into the dim, distant past, I recalled a story which I had heard and forgotten, one of those stories to which one listens but forgets, which leaves but a faint impression upon the memory. There was something about love in it. Little by little, the shadows cleared up and the fate of a young girl appeared before my eyes. Then her name struck me with the force and explosion. Madame Azzelle, there was already talk of the approaching wedding. The youth seemed to be very much in love, very happy. I raised my eye to the net, where all the packages which had been brought in by the servant were tumbling from the motion of the train. And the voice of the servant came back to me as if he had just finished speaking. He had said they're mature, that is all. There are five of them, the candy, the doll, the drum, the gun and the pâté de foie gras. In a second the whole romance unfolded itself in my head. It was like all those which I had already read where the young lady married, not withstanding the catastrophe whether physical or financial. Therefore this officer who had been maimed in the war had returned after the campaign to the young girl who had given up promise and she had kept her word. I considered that very beautiful but simple, just as one considers simple all emotions and climaxes in books or in plays. It always seems when one reads or listens to these stories the magnanimity that one could sacrifice oneself with enthusiastic pleasure and overwhelming joy. But the following day when an unfortunate friend comes to borrow some money, there is a strange revulsion of feeling. But suddenly another supposition less poetic and more artistic replaced the first one. Perhaps he had married before the war before this frightful accident and she in despair and resignation had been forced to receive care for, cheer, support this husband who had departed a handsome man and had returned without his feet a frightful wreck forced into immobility, powerless anger and fatal obesity. Was he happy or in torture? I was seized with a irresistible desire to know his story or at least the principal points which would permit me to guess that which he could not or would not tell me. Still thinking the matter over I began talking to him. We exchanged a few commonplace words and I raised my eyes to the net and thought he must have three children. The bonbons are for his wife, the doll for his little girl, the drum and the gun for his sons and the catet de foie gras for himself. Suddenly I asked him Are you a father, monsieur? He answered, No, monsieur. I suddenly felt confused as if I had been guilty of some breach of etiquette and I continued, I beg your pardon I had thought that you were when I heard your servant speaking about the toys one listens and draws conclusions unconsciously. He smiled and then murmured No, I'm not even married I'm still at the preliminary stage I pretended suddenly to remember and said Oh, that's true when I knew you, you were engaged to Mademoiselle de Mandel I believe. Yes, monsieur your memory is excellent I grew very bold and added I also seem to remember hearing that Mademoiselle de Mandel married Monsieur Monsieur, he calmly mentioned the name Monsieur de Florelle Yes, that's it. I remember it was that occasion that I heard of your wound I looked him full in the face and he blushed His full face, which has already become quite red from the oversupply of blood, turned crimson He answered quickly with the sudden ardour of a man who is pleading a cause which is lost in his mind and in his heart which he does not wish to admit It is wrong, monsieur, to couple my name with that of Madame Florelle When I returned from the war without Mademoiselle de Mandel, I never would have permitted her to become my wife Was it possible? When one marries monsieur, it is not in order to parade one's generosity It is in order to live every day, every hour, every minute every second beside a man And if this man is disfigured as I am, it is a death sentence to marry him Oh, I understand I admire all sacrifices and devotions when they have a limit I do not admit that a woman should give up her whole life all joy, all her dreams in order to satisfy the admiration of the gallery When I hear, on the floor of my room the tapping of my wooden legs and of my crutches, I grow angry enough to strangle my servant Do you think that I would permit a woman to do what I myself am unable to tolerate? And then, do you think that my stumps are pretty? Silent, what could I say? You certainly was right. Could I blame her? Hold her in contempt? Even say that she was wrong? No However, the end which conformed to the rule, to the truth did not satisfy my poetic appetite These heroic deeds demand a beautiful sacrifice, which seemed to be lacking, and I felt a certain disappointment I suddenly asked Has Madame Florelle any children? Yes, one girl, two boys It is for them that I am bringing these toys. She and her husband are very kind to me The train was going up the incline to Saint-Germain. It passed through the tunnels entered the station and stopped I was about to offer my arm to the wounded officer in order to help him descend When two hands were stretched up to him through the open door Hello, my dear, Ravallier Hello, Florelle Standing behind the man, the woman still beautiful, smiling and to him, a little girl standing beside her was jumping for joy and two young boys were eagerly watching the drums and the gun which were passing from the car into their father's hands When the cripple was on the ground all the children kissed him Then they set off, the little girl holding in her hand the small, varnished rung of a crutch just as she might walk beside her big friend and hold his thumb End of the Cripple by Guy de Mont-Passant Read by Roy Schreiber The Four Fists by F. Scott Fitzgerald This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Greg Marguerite The Four Fists by F. Scott Fitzgerald At the present time no one I know has the slightest desire to hit Samuel Meredith Possibly this is because a man over 50 is liable to be rather severely cracked at the impact of a hostile fist, but for my part I am inclined to think that all his hittable qualities have quite vanished, but it is certain that at various times in his life hittable qualities were in his face as surely as kissable qualities have ever lurked in a girl's lips I am sure everyone has met a man like that been casually introduced even made a friend of him yet felt he was the sort who aroused passionate dislike expressed by some in the involuntary clinching of fists and in others by mutterings about taking up poke and landing a swift smash in the eye In juxtaposition of Samuel Meredith's features this quality was so strong that it influenced his entire life What was it? Not the shape certainly for he was a pleasant looking man from earliest youth broad bowed with grey eyes that were frank and friendly yet I've heard him tell a room full of reporters angling for a success story that he'd be ashamed to tell them the truth that they wouldn't believe it that it wasn't one story but four that the public would not want to read about a man who had been walloped into prominence It all started at Phillips and he was fourteen He had been brought up on a diet of caviar in Bell Boy's legs in half the capitals of Europe and it was pure luck that his mother had nervous prostration and had to delegate his education to less tender, less biased hands At Andover he was given a roommate named Gilly Hood Gilly was thirteen, undersized and rather the school pet From the September day when Mr. Meredith's valet stowed Samuel's clothing to the best bureau and asked on departing if there was anything else Mr. Samuel Gilly cried out that the faculty had played him false. He felt like an irate frog in whose bowl had been put goldfish Good gosh he complained to his sympathetic contemporaries. He's a damn stuck up willy. He said are the crowds here gentlemen? And I said no, they're boys and he said age didn't matter and I said who said it did Old Pie Face For three weeks Gilly endured in silence young Samuel's comments on the clothes and habits of Gilly's personal friends endured French phrases in conversation endured a hundred half feminine meannesses that show what a nervous mother can do to a boy if she keeps him close enough. Then a storm broke in the aquarium Samuel was out a crowd had gathered to hear Gilly be wrathful about his roommates' latest comments. He said oh I don't like the windows open at night he said except only a little bit complained Gilly. Don't let him boss you. Boss me you bet he won't. I open those windows I guess but the darn fool won't take turns shutting them in the morning. Make him Gilly, why don't you? I'm going to. Gilly nodded his head in fierce agreement. Don't you worry. He didn't think I'm any old butler. Let's see you make him. At this point the darn fool entered in person and included the crowd in one of his irritating smiles. Two boys said, the others gave him a chilly glance and went on talking to Gilly but Samuel seemed unsatisfied. Would you mind not sitting on my bed? He suggested politely to two of Gilly's particulars who were perched very much at ease. My bed can't you understand English? This was adding insult to injury. There were several comments on the bed's sanitary condition and the evidence within it of animal life. Smatter with your old bed demanded Gilly truculently. The bed's all right but Gilly interrupted this sentence by rising and walking up to Samuel. He paused several inches away and eyed him fiercely. You and your crazy old bed he began. You and your crazy go to it Gilly murmured someone. Show the darn fool. Samuel returned the gaze coolly. Well, he said finally, it's my bed. He got no further. For Gilly hauled off and hit him succinctly in the nose. Yeah, Gilly, show the big bully. Just let him touch you. He'll see. The group closed in on them and for the first time in his life Samuel realized the insuperable inconvenience of being passionately detested. He gazed around helplessly at the glowering, violently hostile faces. He towered a head taller than his roommate so if he hit back he'd be called a bully and have half a dozen more fights on his hands within five minutes. Yet if he didn't he was a coward. For a moment he stood there facing Gilly's blazing eyes and then with a sudden choking sound he forced his way through the ring and rushed from the room. The month following bracketed the thirty most miserable days of his life. Every waking moment he was under the lashing tongues of his contemporaries. His habits and mannerisms became butts for intolerable witticisms and, of course positiveness of adolescence was a further thorn. He considered that he was a natural pariah that the unpopularity at school would follow him through life. When he went home for Christmas holidays he was so despondent that his father sent him to a nerve specialist. When he returned to Andover he arranged to arrive late so that he could be alone in the bus during the drive from station to school. Of course when he had learned to keep his mouth shut everyone promptly forgot all about him. The next item with his realization that consideration for others was the discreet attitude he made good use of the clean start given him by the shortness of boyhood memory. By the beginning of his senior year Samuel Meredith was one of the best liked boys in his class and no one was any stronger for him than his first friend and constant companion, Gilly Hood. Section 2 Samuel became the sort of college student who in the early nineties had the same standards and coaches and tally-hoes between Princeton and Yale and New York City to show that they appreciated the social importance of football games. He believed passionately in good form. His choosing of gloves, his tying of ties, his holding of reins were imitated by impressionable freshmen. Outside of his own set he was considered rather a snob, but as his set was THE set it never worried him. He played football in the autumn, footballs in the winter, and road in the spring. Samuel despised all those who were merely sportsmen without being gentlemen or merely gentlemen without being sportsmen. He lived in New York and often brought home several of his friends for the weekend. Those were the days of the horse car and in case of a crush it was, of course, the proper thing for any one of Samuel's set to rise and deliver his seat to a standing lady with a formal bow. One night in Samuel's junior year he boarded a car with two of his intimates. There were three vacant seats. When Samuel sat down he noticed a heavy-eyed laboring man sitting next to him who smelt objectionably of garlic, sagged slightly against Samuel and spreading a little as a tired man will took up quite too much room. The car had gone several blocks when it stopped for a quartet of young girls and, of course, the three men of the world sprang to their feet and proffered with due observance of form. Unfortunately the laborer being unacquainted with the coat of neckties and tally-hose failed to follow their example and one young lady was left at an embarrassed stance. Fourteen eyes glared reproachfully at the barbarian. Seven lips curled slightly, but the object of scorn stared solidly into the foreground in sturdy unconsciousness of his despicable conduct. Samuel was the most violently affected. He was humiliated that any male should so conduct himself. He spoke aloud. There's a lady standing, he said sternly. That should have been quite enough, but the object of scorn only looked up blankly. The standing girl tittered and exchanged nervous glances with her companions, but Samuel was aroused. There's a lady standing, he repeated rather raspingly. The man seemed to comprehend. My fair, he said quietly. Samuel turned red and his hands clenched but the conductor was looking their way, so at a warning nod from his friends he subsided into sullen gloom. They reached their destination and left the car, but so did the laborer who followed them, swinging his little pale. Seeing his chance, Samuel no longer resisted his aristocratic inclination. He turned around and launching a full featured dime novel sneer made a loud remark that he write of lower animals to ride with human beings. In a half second the workman had dropped his pale and let fly at him. Unprepared, Samuel took the blow neatly on the jaw and sprawled full length into the cobblestone gutter. Don't laugh at me, cried his assailant. I've been working all day. I'm tired as hell. As he spoke the sudden anger died out of his eyes and the mask of weariness dropped again over his face. He turned and picked up his pale. Samuel's friends took a quick step in his direction. Wait! Samuel had risen slowly and was motioning back. Sometime, somewhere he had been struck like that before. Then he remembered gilly hood. In the silence as he dusted himself off the whole scene in the room at Andover was before his eyes and he knew intuitively that he had been wrong again. This man's strength, his rest, was the protection of his family. More use for his seat in the street car than any young girl. It's all right, said Samuel gruffly. Don't touch him. I've been a damn fool. Of course it took more than an hour or a week for Samuel to rearrange his ideas on the essential importance of good form. At first he simply admitted that his wrongness had made him powerless as it had made him powerless against gilly. But eventually his mistake about the workman influenced his entire attitude. Snobbishness is, after all, merely good breeding grown dictatorial. So Samuel's code remained, but the necessity of imposing it upon others had faded out in a certain gutter. Within that year his class had somehow stopped referring to him as a snob. Section 3 After a few years, Samuel's University decided that it had shown long enough in the reflected glory of his neckties, so they declined to him in Latin. Charged him ten dollars for the paper which proved him irretrievably educated and sent him into the turmoil with much self-confidence of few friends and the proper assortment of harmless bad habits. His family had by that time started back to shirt sleeves through a sudden decline in the sugar market, and it had already unbuttoned its vest, so to speak, when Samuel went to work. His mind was that exquisite tabula rasa that a university education sometimes leaves, but he had both energy and influence, so he used his former ability as a dodging half-back in twisting through Wall Street crowds as a runner for a bank. His diversion was women. There were half a dozen, two or three debutants, an actress in a minor way, a grass widow, and one sentimental little brunette who was married and lived in a little house in Jersey City. They had met on a ferry boat. Samuel was crossing from New York on business. He had been working several years by this time, and he helped her look for a package that she had dropped in the crush. Do you come over often, he inquired casually? Just to shop, she said shyly. She had great brown eyes and the pathetic kind of little mouth. I've only been married three months, and we find it cheaper to live over here. Does he—does your husband like you being alone like this? She laughed a cheery young laugh. Oh, dear me, no. We were meant to meet for dinner, but you must have misunderstood the place. He'll be awfully worried. Well, said Samuel disapprovingly, he ought to be. If you'll allow me, I'll see you home. She accepted his offer thankfully, so they took the cable car together. When they walked up the path to her little house, they saw a light there. Her husband had arrived before her. He's frightfully jealous, she announced, laughing apologetic. Very well, answered Samuel rather stiffly, I'd better leave you here. I'll see him and waving a good night. He left her. That would have been quite all if they hadn't met on Fifth Avenue one morning a week later. She started and blushed and seemed so glad to see him that they chatted like old friends. She was going to her dressmakers, eat lunch alone at Taines, shop all afternoon, and meet her husband on the ferry at five. Samuel told her that her husband was a very lucky man. She blushed again and scared off. He whistled all the way back to his office, but about twelve o'clock he began to see that pathetic appealing little mouth everywhere, and those brown eyes. He fidgeted when he looked at the clock. He thought of the grill downstairs where he lunched and the heavy male conversation thereof. And opposed to that picture appeared another, a little table at Taines with the brown eyes and the mouth a few feet away. A few minutes before twelve-thirty he dashed on his hat and rushed for the cable car. She was quite surprised to see him. Why, hello, she said. Samuel could tell that she was just pleasantly frightened. I thought we might lunch together. It's so dull eating with a lot of men. She hesitated. Why, I suppose there's no harm in it. How could there be? It occurred to her that her husband should have taken lunch with her, but he was generally so hurried at noon. She told Samuel all about him. He was a little smaller than Samuel, but oh, much better looking. He was a bookkeeper and not making a lot of money, but they were very happy and expected to be rich within three or four years. Samuel's grass widow had been in a quarrelsome mood for three or four weeks, and through contrast he took an accentuated pleasure in this meeting. So fresh was she and earnest and faintly adventurous. Her name was Marjorie. They made another engagement. In fact, for a month they lunched every week. When she was sure that her husband would work late, Samuel took her over to New Jersey on the ferry, leaving her always on the tiny front porch after she had gone in and lit the gas to use the security of his masculine presence outside. This grew to be ceremony, and it annoyed him. Whenever the comfortable glow fell out through the front windows, that was his collet, yet he never suggested coming in, and Marjorie didn't touch the stage in which they sometimes touched each other's arms gently just to show that they were very good friends. Marjorie and her husband had one of those ultra-sensitive, super-critical quarrels that couples never indulge in unless they care a great deal about each other. It started with a cold mutton chop or a leak in the gas jet, and one day Samuel found her in tains with dark shadows under her brown eyes and a terrifying pout. By this time Samuel thought he was Marjorie, so he played up the quarrel for all it was worth. He was her best friend and padded her hand and leaned down close to her brown curls when she whispered in little sobs what her husband had said that morning, and he was a little more than her best friend when he took her over to the ferry in Handsome. Marjorie, he said gently when he left her as usual on the porch, if at any time you want to call on me, remember that I am always waiting, always waiting. She nodded gravely and put both her hands in his. I know, she said, I know you're my friend, my best friend. Then she ran into the house and he watched there until the gas went on. For the next week Samuel was in a nervous turmoil. Some persistently rational strain warned him that at bottom he and Marjorie had little in common, but in such cases there is usually so much mud in the water that one can seldom see to the bottom. Every dream and desire told him he loved Marjorie, wanted her, had to have her. The quarrel developed. Marjorie's husband took to staying in New York until late at night, came home several times, disagreeably overstimulated and made her generally miserable. They must have had too much pride to talk it out, for Marjorie's husband was after all pretty decent, so it drifted from one misunderstanding to another. Marjorie kept coming more and more to Samuel. When a woman can accept masculine sympathy it is much more satisfactory to her than crying to another girl. But Marjorie didn't realize how much she had begun to rely on him, how much he was part of her little cosmos. One night, instead of turning away when Marjorie went in and lit the gas, Samuel went in too and they sat together on the sofa in the little parlor. He was very happy. He envied their home and he felt that the man who neglected such a possession out of stubborn pride was a man unworthy of his wife. But when he kissed Marjorie for the first time she cried softly and told him to go. He sailed home on the wings of desperate excitement, quite resolved to fan this spark of romance no matter how big the blaze or who was burned. At the time he considered that his thoughts were unselfishly of her. In a later perspective he knew that she had meant no more than the white screen in a motion picture. It was just Samuel, blind, desirous. Next day it tanes when they met for lunch. Samuel dropped all pretense and made Frank love to her. He had no plans, no definite intentions, except to kiss her lips again, to hold her in his arms and feel that she was very little and pathetic and lovable. He took her home and this time they kissed until both their hearts beat high. Words and phrases formed on his lips. And then suddenly there were steps on the porch. Man tried the outside door. Marjorie turned dead white. Wait! she whispered to Samuel in a frightened voice, but in angry impatience at the interruption he walked to the front door and threw it open. Everyone has seen such scenes on this stage. They see them so often that when they actually happen people behave very much like actors. Samuel felt that he was playing apart and the lines came quite naturally. He announced that all had a right to lead their own lives and Marjorie's husband menacingly as if daring him to doubt it. Marjorie's husband spoke of the sanctity of home, forgetting that it hadn't seemed very holy to him lately. Samuel continued along the lines of the right to happiness. Marjorie's husband mentioned firearms and the divorce court. Then suddenly he stopped and scrutinized both of them. Marjorie in pitiful collapse on the sofa. Samuel haranging the furniture in a consciously heroic pose. Go upstairs, Marjorie, he said in a different tone. Stay where you are, Samuel countered quickly. Marjorie rose, wavered and sat down, rose again and moved hesitatingly towards the stairs. Come outside, said her husband to Samuel. I want to talk to you. Samuel glanced at Marjorie, tried to get some message from her eyes, then he shut his lips and went out. There was a bright moon and when Marjorie's husband came down the steps Samuel could see plainly he was suffering but he felt no pity for him. They stood and looked at each other a few feet apart and the husband cleared his throat as though it were a bit husky. That's my wife, he said quietly and then a wild anger surged up inside him. Damn you, he cried and hit Samuel in the face with all his strength. In that second as Samuel slumped to the ground it flashed to him that he had been hit like this twice before and simultaneously the incident altered and he felt suddenly awake. Mechanically he sprang to his feet and squared off. The other man was waiting fists up a yard away but Samuel knew that though physically he had him by several inches and many pounds he wouldn't hit him. The situation had miraculously and entirely changed. A moment before Samuel had seemed to himself heroic. Now he seemed the cad, the outsider and Marjorie's husband silhouetted against the light of the little house figure, the defender of his home. There was a pause and then Samuel turned quickly away and went down the path for the last time. Section 4 Of course, after the third blow Samuel put in several weeks at conscientious introspection. The blow years before at Anover had landed on his personal unpleasantness. The workmen of his college days had jarred the snobbishness out of his system and Marjorie's husband had given a severe jolt to his greedy selfishness. It threw women out of his kin until a year later when he met his future wife for the only sort of woman worthwhile seemed to be the one who couldn't be protected as Marjorie's husband had protected her. Samuel could not imagine his grass widow, Mrs. DeFerriac, causing any very righteous blows on her own account. His early thirties found him well on his feet. He was associated with old Peter Carhart who was, in those days, a national figure. Carhart's physique was like a rough model for the statue of Hercules and his record was just as solid, a pile made for the pure joy of it without cheap extortion or shady scandal. He had been a great friend of Samuel's father but he watched the sun for six years before taking him into his own office. Heaven knows how many things he controlled at that time, mines, railroads, banks, whole cities. Samuel was very close to him, knew his likes and dislikes, his prejudices, weaknesses, and many strengths. One day Carhart sent for Samuel and closing the door of his inner office offered him a chair and a cigar. Everything OK, Samuel, he asked. Why, yes. I've been afraid you're getting a bit stale. Stale, Samuel was puzzled. You've done no work outside the office for nearly ten years. But I've had vacations in the Adirond—Carhart waved this aside. I mean outside work, seeing the things move that we've always pulled the strings of here. No, admitted Samuel. I haven't. So, he said abruptly, I'm going to give you an outside job that'll take about a month. Samuel didn't argue. He rather liked the idea and he made up his mind that whatever it was he would put it through just as Carhart wanted it. That was his employer's greatest hobby and the men around him were as dumb under direct orders as infantry subalterns. You'll go to San Antonio and see Hamill continued Carhart. He's got a job on hand and he wants a man to take charge. Hamill was in charge of the Carhart interests in the Southwest, a man who had grown up in the shadow of his employer and with whom, though they had never met, Samuel had much official correspondence. When do I leave? Carhart answered Carhart glancing at the calendar. That's the first of May. I'll expect your report here on the 1st of June. Next morning, Samuel left for Chicago and two days later he was facing Hamill across a table in the office of the Merchant's Trust in San Antonio. It didn't take long to get the gist of the thing. It was a big deal in oil which concerned the buying up of seventeen huge adjoining ranches. The buying up had to be done in one week and it was a pure squeeze. Forces had been set in motion that put the seventeen owners between the devil and the deep sea and Samuel's part was simply to handle the matter from a little village near Pueblo. With tact and efficiency the right man could bring it off without any friction. For it was merely a question of sitting at the wheel and keeping a firm hold. Hamill, with an astuteness many times valuable to his chief had arranged a situation that would give a much greater clear gain than any dealing in the open market. Samuel shook hands with Hamill, arranged to return in two weeks and left for San Felipe, New Mexico. It occurred to him, of course, that Carhart was trying him out. Hamill's report on his handling of this might be a factor in something big for him, but even without that he would have done his best to put the thing through. Ten years in New York hadn't made him sentimental and he was quite accustomed to finish everything he began and a little bit more. All went well at first. There was enthusiasm, but each one of the seventeen ranchers concerned knew Samuel's business, knew what he had behind him and that they had his little chance of holding out his flies on a window pane. Some of them were resigned. Some of them cared like the devil, but they'd talked it over, argued it with lawyers, and couldn't see any possible loophole. Five of the ranches had oil. The other twelve were part of the chance, but quite as necessary to Hamill's purpose in any event. Samuel soon saw that the real leader was an early settler named McIntyre, a man of perhaps fifty, gray-haired, clean-shaven, bronzed by forty New Mexico summers and with those clear, steady eyes that Texas and New Mexico weather are apt to give. His ranch had not as yet shown oil, but it was in the pool and if any man hated to lose his land, McIntyre did. Everyone had rather looked to him at first to avert the big calamity, and he had hunted all over the territory for the legal means with which to do it, but he had failed and he knew it. He avoided Samuel assiduously, but Samuel was sure that when the day came for the signatures he would appear. It came. A baking May day, with hot waves rising off the parched land as far as the eyes could see, and Samuel sat stewing in his little improvised office. A few chairs, a bench, and a wooden table. He was glad the thing was almost over. He wanted to get the worst way and join his wife and children for a week at the seashore. The meeting was set for four o'clock and he was rather surprised at 3.30 when the door opened and McIntyre came in. Samuel could not help respecting the man's attitude and feeling a bit sorry for him. McIntyre seemed closely related to the prairies and Samuel had the little flicker of envy that city people feel towards men who live in the open. Afternoon said McIntyre standing in the open with his feet apart and his hands on his hips. Hello, Mr. McIntyre. Samuel rose, but omitted the formality of offering his hand. He imagined the rancher cordially loathed him and he hardly blamed him. McIntyre came in and sat down leisurely. You got us, he said suddenly. This didn't seem to require any answer. When I heard Carhart was back this, he continued. I gave up. Mr. Carhart is, began Samuel, but kept him silent. Don't talk about the dirty, sneak, thief. Mr. McIntyre said Samuel briskly, if this half hour is to be devoted to that sort of talk. Oh, dry up, young man, McIntyre interrupted. You can't abuse a man who'd do a thing like this. Samuel made no answer. It's simply a dirty filch. There just are, skunks like him, too big to handle. You were being paid liberally offered, Samuel. Get up, roared McIntyre suddenly. I want the privilege of talking. He walked to the door and looked out across the land, the sunny, steaming pastureage that began almost at his feet and ended with the gray green of the distant mountains. When he turned around, his mouth was trembling. Do you fellas love Wall Street, he said hoarsely? Or wherever you do your dirty scheming? He paused. I suppose you do. No critter gets so low that he doesn't sort of love where he's sweated out the best he had in him. Samuel watched him awkwardly. McIntyre wiped his forehead with a huge black handkerchief and continued. I reckon this rotten old devil had to have another million. I reckon we're just a few of the poor he's blotted out to buy a couple more carriages or something. He waved his hand towards the door. I built a house out there when I was seventeen with these two hands. I took a wife there, twenty-one, added two wings, and with more mangy steers I started out. Forty summers I saw the sun come up over these mountains and drop down red as blood in the evening before the heat drifted off and the stars come out. I've been happy in that house. My boy was born there and he died there late one spring in the hottest part of the afternoon like this. Then the wife and I lived there alone like we lived before and sort of tried to have a home after all. Not a real home, but nah, it... cause the boy always seemed around, close somehow, and we expected a lot of nights to see him running up the path to supper. His voice was shaking so he could hardly speak and he turned again to the door. His grey eyes contracted. That's my land out there, he said, stretching out his arm. My land by God, it's all I got in the world, all I ever wanted. He dashed his sleeve across his face and his tone changed as he turned slowly and faced Samuel. But I suppose it's got to go when they want it. It's got to go. Samuel had to talk. He felt that in a minute more he would lose his head so he began as level voiced as he could in the sort of tone he saved for disagreeable duties. It's business, Mr. McIntyre, he said. It's inside the law. Perhaps we couldn't have bought out two or three of you at any price but most of you did have a price. Progress demands some things. Never had he felt so inadequate and it was with the greatest relief that he heard hoof beats a few hundred yards away. But at his words the grief in McIntyre's eyes had changed a fury. You and your dirty gang of crooks, he cried. Not one of you has got an honest love for anything on God's earth. You're a herd of money swine. Samuel rose and McIntyre took a step towards him. You long-winded dude, you got our land. Take that for Peter Carhart. He swung from the shoulder quick as lightning and down went Samuel in a heap. Dingly he heard steps in the doorway and knew that someone was holding McIntyre but there was no need. The rancher had sunk down in his chair and dropped his head in his hands. Samuel's brain was worrying. He realized that the fourth fist had hit him and a great flood of emotion cried out that the law that had inexorably ruled his life was in motion again. In a half days he got up and strode from the room. The next ten minutes were perhaps the hardest of his life. People talk of the courage of convictions but in actual life a man's duty to his family may make a rigid corpse seem a selfish indulgence of his own righteousness. Samuel thought mostly of his family yet he never really wavered. That jolt had brought him too. When he came back into the room there were a lot of worried faces waiting for him but he didn't waste any time explaining. He said, Mr. McIntyre has been kind enough to convince me that in this matter you are absolutely right and the Peter Carhart interests absolutely wrong. As far as I'm concerned you can keep your ranches to the rest of your days. He pushed his way through an astounded gathering and within a half hour he had sent two telegrams that staggered the operator into complete unfitness for business. One was to Hamill in San Antonio one was to Peter Carhart Samuel didn't sleep much that night. He knew that for the first time in his business career he had made a dismal, miserable failure. But some instinct in him stronger than will, deeper than training had forced him to do what would probably end his ambitions and his happiness. But it was done and it never occurred to him that it could have acted otherwise. The next morning two telegrams were waiting for him. The first was from Hamill. It contained three words. You blamed idiot. The second was from New York. Deal off. Come to New York immediately. Carhart. Within a week things had happened. Hamill quarreled furiously and violently defended his scheme. He was summoned to New York and spent a bad half hour on the carpet in Peter Carhart's office. He broke with the Carhart interests in July and in August Samuel Meredith at 35 years old was to all intents made for Carhart's partner. The fourth fist had done its work. I suppose there's a cat-ish streak in every man that runs crosswise across his character and disposition in general outlook. With some men it's secret and we never know it's there until they strike us in the dark one night. But Samuel showed when it was in action and the sight of it made people see red. He was rather lucky in that because every time his little devil came up it met a reception that sent it scurrying down below in a sickly feeble condition. It was the same devil, the same streak that made him order Gilly's friends off the bed, that made him go inside Marjorie's house. If you could run your hand along Samuel Meredith's jaw you'd feel a lump. He admits he's never been sure which fist left it there but he wouldn't lose it for anything. He says there's no cad like an old cad and that sometimes just after making a decision it's a great help to stroke his chin. The reporters call it a nervous characteristic but it's not that. It's so he can feel again the gorgeous clarity, the lightning sanity of those four fists. End of The Four Fists by F. Scott Fitzgerald Freckles McGrath by Susan Gressbell Read for LibriVox.org by Shona Brogdon's Turbo Freckles McGrath Many visitors to the state house made the mistake of looking upon a governor as the most important personage in the building. They would walk up and down the corridors hoping for a glimpse of some of the leading officials when all the while Freckles McGrath, the real character of the capital and by all odds the most illustrious person in it was it once accessible and affable. Freckles McGrath was the elevator boy in the official register his name had gone down as William but that was a mere concession to the constituents to whom the official register was sent out in the newspapers and he appeared with frequency in the newspapers he was always Freckles and everyone from the governor down gave him that title the appropriateness of which was stamped a hundred fold upon his shrewd jolly irish face like everyone else on the state payroll Freckles was keyed high during the first week of the new session it was a reform legislature and so imbued was it with the idea of reforming that there was grave danger of its forcing reformation upon everything inside it happened that the governor was at the same faction of the party as that dominant in the legislature the form breathed through every nook and crevice of the great building but high above all else in importance towered the Kelly bill from the very opening of the session it was scarcely a day when some Freckles passengers did not in hushed whispers mentioned the Kelly bill from what he could pick up about the building and what he read in the newspapers Freckles put together a few ideas as to what the Kelly bill really was it was a great reform measure and it was going to show the railroads that they did not own the state the railroads were going to have to pay more taxes and they were making an awful fuss about it but if the Kelly bill could be put through it would be a great victory for reform and we make the governor solid in the state Freckles McGrath was strong for reform that was partly because the snatchers of speeches he heard in the legislature were more thrilling when for reform than when against it it was partly because he adored the governor and in no small part because he despised Mr. Lucklow Mr. Lucklow was a lobbyist some of the members of the legislature were Mr. Lucklow's property or at least so Freckles inferred from conversation ever heard in his post there had been a great deal of talk that session about Mr. Lucklow's methods Freckles himself was no snob although he had heard Mr. Lucklow called disgraceful and although he firmly believed he was disgraceful he did not consider that any reason for not speaking to him and so when Mr. Lucklow got in all alone one morning and the occasion seemed to demand recognition of some sort Freckles had chirped good morning but the man possibly deepened something else simply knit together his brows and gave no sign of having heard that Henry Lucklow lobbyist and Freckles McGrath elevator boy were enemies a little before noon one day near the end of the session a member of the senate and a member of the house wrote down together the elevator there's no use waiting any longer senator was saying as they got in we're strong now as we're going to be it's a matter of Stacey's vote Freckles widened out his ears engaged the elevator for very slow running Stacey had been written up in the papers as a wobbler on the Kelly bill he's all right now pursued the senator but there's every chance that Lucklow will see him before he casts his vote this afternoon and then I don't know and with a weary little flourish of his hands the senator stepped off Freckles McGrath sat wrapped in deep thought the Kelly bill was coming up in the senate that afternoon if senator Stacey voted for it it would pass if he voted against it it would fail he would vote for it if he didn't see Mr. Lucklow he wouldn't vote for it if he did that was the situation and the governor's whole future Freckles felt was at stake and he was vaguely conscious then that it had been ringing before in the next half hour he was very busy taking down the members of the legislature strangely enough Senator Stacey and the governor went down the same trip and Freckles beamed with approbation when he saw them walk out of the building together Stacey was one of the first of the senators to return he advised him up keenly as he stepped into the elevator and decided that he was still firm but there was a look about senator Stacey's mouth which suggested that there was no use in being too sure of him Freckles considered the advisability of bursting forth telling him how much better it would be to stick with the reform fellows but just as the boy got his courage screwed up to speaking point senator Stacey got off about ten minutes later Freckles had the elevator on the ground floor and was sitting there reading a paper when he heard a step that made him prick up his ears the next minute Mr. Ludlow turned the corner he was immaculately dressed as usual and his iron grey mustache seemed to stand out just a little more pompously than ever there was a look in his eyes as he stepped into the car it seemed to be saying they thought they could beat me did they they're easy they are Freckles McGrath slammed the door of the cage and started the car up he did not know what he was going to do but he had an idea that he did not want any other passenger when half the way between the basement and the first floor the elevator he must have time to think if he took that man up to the senate chamber he would simply strike the death blow to reform and so he knelt and pretended to be fixing something and he thought fast and hard something broke asked an anxious voice Freckles looked around into Mr. Ludlow's face and he saw the imminent lobbyist was nervous yes he said calmly it's acting queer something's all out of whack well drop it to the basement let me out can't drop it responded Freckles she stuck Mr. Ludlow came and looked things over but his knowledge did not extend to the mechanism of elevators better call someone to come Freckles straighten himself up a glitter had come into his small grey eyes and red spots were burning in his freckle cheeks I think she'll run now he said and she did run never in all its history had that state house elevator run as it ran then it rushed past the first and second floors like a thing let loose with an utter abandonment he calls the blood to forsake the imminent lobbyist's face stop it boy he cried in alarm can't responded Freckles his voice thick with terror running away he gasped will it fall whispered the lobbyist I think so blubbered Freckles the central portion of the state house was very high the building which was in use there was a long stretch leading to the tower the shaft had been built clear up though practically unused past floors used for storerooms past floors used for nothing at all they went the man's face white the boy wailing out of incoherent supplications and then within ten feet of the top of the shaft and within a foot of the top floor of the building the elevator came to a rickety stop it wobbled back and forth it did strange and terrible things she's falling painted Freckles climb and Henry Ludlow climbed he got the door open and he clamored up no sooner had the man's feet touched the solid floor then Freckles reached up and slammed the door of the cage why he did that he was not sure at the time later he felt that something had warned him not to give his prisoner's voice a full sweep down the shaft Henry Ludlow was far from dull as he saw the quick but even descent of the car he knew that he'd been tricked he would have been more than human had there not burst from him furious and threatening words but what was the use the car was going down down down and there he was perhaps hundreds of feet above anyone else in the building alone tricked beaten of course he tried the door at the head of the winding stairway knowing full well that it would be locked they always kept it locked he had heard one of the janitors asking for the keys to take a party up just a few days before perhaps he could get out on top of the building and make signals of distress but the door leading outside was locked also there he was helpless and below below they were passing the Kelly Bill he rattled the grating of the elevator shaft he made strange loud noises knowing all the while he could not make himself heard and then at last alone in the state house attic Henry Ludlow eminent lobbyist sat down on a box and nursed his fury below the youngest champion of reform in the building was putting on a bold front he laughed and he talked and he whistled he took people up and down with as much nonchalance as if he did not know that up at the top of that shaft angry eyes were straining themselves for a glimpse of the car and terrible curses were descending literally upon his stubby red head it was a great afternoon at the state house everyone thronged the doors of the senate chamber where they were putting through the Kelly Bill the speeches made on behalf of the measure were brief the great thing now was not to make speeches it was to reach S on roll call for a man with iron grey hair and an iron grey mustache could come in and say something to the fair haired member with a weak mouth who sat near the rear of the chamber freckles was called away just as it went to a vote when he came back senator Kelly was standing out in the corridor and a great crowd of men were standing around slapping him on the back the governor himself was standing on the steps of the senate chamber the eyes were bright and he was smiling freckles turned his car back to the basement he wanted to be all alone for a minute to dwell in solitude upon the fact that it was he freckles mcgrath who had won this great victory for reform it was he freckles mcgrath who had assured the governor's future why perhaps he had that afternoon made for himself a name which would be handed down in the histories freckles was a kind little boy and knew that an elegant gentleman could not find the attic any too pleasant a place in which to spend the afternoon so he decided to go up and get mr. Ludlow it took courage but he had won his victory and this was no time for faltering there was something gruesome about the long assent he thought of stories he had read of lonely torrents in which men were beheaded and otherwise made away with it seemed he would never come to the top and when it last he did it was defined two of the most awful looking eyes he'd ever seen eyes that looked as though furies were going to escape from them peering down upon him the sight of that car moving smoothly and securely to the top and the sight of that audacious little boy with the freckle face and the bat-like eyes that little boy who had played his game so well would rot such havoc was too much for Henry Ludlow's self-control words such as he'd never used before such as he would not have supposed himself capable of using burst from him but freckles stood calmly gazing up at the infuriated lobbyist and Justice Mr. Ludlow was saying I'll beat your head open you little brat he calmly reversed the handle and sent the car skimming smoothly to realms below he was followed by an angry yell and then by a loud request to return but he heeded not and for some time longer the car made its usual rounds between the basement and the legislative chambers in just an hour freckles tried it again he sent the car to within three feet of the attic floor and then peered through the grating his face tied in a knot of interrogation the eminent lobbyist did their gulping down wrath and pride knowing well enough what was expected of him oh alright he muttered it last and with that much of an understanding freckles sent the car up opened the door and Henry Ludlow stepped in no word was spoken between them until the light from the floor upon which the senate chamber was situated came in view then freckles turned with a polite inquiry as to where the gentlemen wished to get off you may take me down to the office of the governor said Mr. Ludlow stoningly meaningly sure said freckles cheerfully guess you'll find the governor in his office now he's been in the senate most of the afternoon watching him pass that kellybill Mr. Ludlow's lips drew in tightly he squared his shoulders and his silence was tremendous in just 15 minutes freckles was sent for from the executive office I demand his discharge Mr. Ludlow was saying as the elevator boy entered it happens you're not running this building the governor returned with a good deal of acidity though of course he added with dignity the matter will be carefully investigated the governor was one great chuckle inside and his heart was full of admiration and gratitude but would freckles be equal to bluffing it through but the boy had the finesse the nice subtlety the real master hand the situation demanded if not then imp of salvation though he was in the interest of reform freckles would have to go it was a very innocent looking boy who stood before him and looked inquiringly into his face William began the governor freckles was pained at first and then remembered that officially he was William this gentleman has made a very serious charge against you freckles looked at Mr. Ludlow in a hurt way and waited for the governor to proceed he says went on the chief executive that you deliberately took him to the top of the building and willfully left him there prisoner all afternoon did you do that? oh sir burst forth freckles I did the very best I could to save his life I was willing to sacrifice mine for him I you little wire broken Ludlow the governor held up his hand you had your chance let him have his you see governor began freckles as if anxious to set right a wrong which had been done him the car is acting bad the engineer said only this morning it needed to going over when it took that awful shoot I lost control of it maybe I'm to be discharged for losing control of it but not freckles sniffle pathetically but not for anything like what he says I done by governor he went on ramming his knuckles into his eyes I got nothing against him what did I take him to the attic for? of course not for money sneered Mr. Ludlow the governor turned on him sharply when you can bring any proof of that I'll be ready to hear it until you can you better leave it out of the question strange it should have happened this very afternoon put in the eminent lobbyist the governor looked at him with open countness you were especially interested in something this afternoon I thought you told me you had no vital interest here this session there was nothing to be said Mr. Ludlow said nothing now William pursued the governor fearful in his heart that this would be freckles undoing why did you close the door of the shaft before you started down well you see sir began freckles still tremulously I'm so used to closing doors closing doors has become a kind of second nature with me I've been told about it so many times and up there though I thought I was losing my life still I didn't neglect my duty the governor put his hand to his mouth and coughed and why he went on more secure now for a boy who could get out of that could get out of anything why was it you didn't make some immediate effort to get Mr. Ludlow down why didn't you notify or do something about it why I supposed of course he walked down by the stairs cried freckles I never dreamed he'd walked across the elevator after the way she had acted the door was locked snarled the imminent lobbyist well now you see I didn't know that explained freckles expansively late in the afternoon I took a run up just to test the car and there you were I never was so surprised in my life I supposed of course sir that you spent the afternoon in the senate along with everybody else once more the governor put his hand to his mouth your case will come before the executive council at its next meeting William and if anything like this should happen again you will be discharged on the spot freckles bowed you may go now when he was almost at the door the governor called to him don't you think William he said the governor felt that he and freckles could afford to be generous that you should apologize to the gentleman for the really grave inconvenience to which you've been the means of subjecting him freckles little gray eyes grew steely he looked at Henry Ludlow in ominous silence then light broke over his face on behalf of the elevator he said I apologize and the third time the governor's hand was raised to his mouth the next week freckles was wearing a signet ring long and audibly had he sighed for a ring of such kind and proportions he was at some pains explaining to everyone to whom he showed it that it had been sent him by a friend a poem and a freckles McGrath by Susan Glassbell this recording is in the public domain