The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Good-For-Nothing, by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

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Title: A Good-For-Nothing
1876

Author: Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

Release Date: October 24, 2007 [EBook #23174]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING ***

Produced by David Widger

A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING

By Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.

Copyright, 1876, by James R. Osgood & Co

I

Ralph Grimm was born a gentleman, He had the misfortune of coming into
the world some ten years later than might reasonably have been expected.
Colonel Grim and his lady had celebrated twelve anniversaries of their
wedding-day, and had given up all hopes of ever having a son and heir,
when this late comer startled them by his unexpected appearance. The
only previous addition to the family had been a daughter, and she was
then ten summers old.

Ralph was a very feeble child, and could only with great difficulty be
persuaded to retain his hold of the slender thread which bound him to
existence. He was rubbed with whiskey, and wrapped in cotton, and given
mare's milk to drink, and God knows what not, and the Colonel swore a
round oath of paternal delight when at last the infant stopped gasping
in that distressing way and began to breathe like other human beings.
The mother, who, in spite of her anxiety for the child's life, had found
time to plot for him a career of future magnificence, now suddenly set
him apart for literature, because that was the easiest road to fame, and
disposed of him in marriage to one of the most distinguished families of
the land. She cautiously suggested this to her husband when he came to
take his seat at her bedside; but to her utter astonishment she found
that he had been indulging a similar train of thought, and had already
destined the infant prodigy for the army. She, however, could not give
up her predilection for literature, and the Colonel, who could not bear
to be contradicted in his own house, as he used to say, was getting
every minute louder and more flushed, when, happily, the doctor's
arrival interrupted the dispute.

As Ralph