FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122  
123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   >>   >|  
e the neighborhood cats do that. "Look, Hawkins, look! I'm drawing It over!" "You're drawing it sure, Rossmore. If I ever had any doubts about materialization, they're gone, now, and gone for good. Oh, this is a joyful day!" Tracy was sauntering over to read the door-plate. Before he was half way over he was saying to himself, "Why, manifestly these are the American Claimant's quarters." "It's coming--coming right along. I'll slide, down and pull It in. You follow after me." Sellers, pale and a good deal agitated, opened the door and confronted Tracy. The old man could not at once get his voice: then he pumped out a scattering and hardly coherent salutation, and followed it with-- "Walk in, walk right in, Mr.--er--" "Tracy--Howard Tracy." "Tracy--thanks--walk right in, you're expected." Tracy entered, considerably puzzled, and said: "Expected? I think there must be some mistake." "Oh, I judge not," said Sellers, who--noticing that Hawkins had arrived, gave him a sidewise glance intended to call his close attention to a dramatic effect which he was proposing to produce by his next remark. Then he said, slowly and impressively--"I am--YOU KNOW WHO." To the astonishment of both conspirators the remark produced no dramatic effect at all; for the new-comer responded with a quite innocent and unembarrassed air-- "No, pardon me. I don't know who you are. I only suppose--but no doubt correctly--that you are the gentleman whose title is on the doorplate." "Right, quite right--sit down, pray sit down." The earl was rattled, thrown off his bearings, his head was in a whirl. Then he noticed Hawkins standing apart and staring idiotically at what to him was the apparition of a defunct man, and a new idea was born to him. He said to Tracy briskly: "But a thousand pardons, dear sir, I am forgetting courtesies due to a guest and stranger. Let me introduce my friend General Hawkins--General Hawkins, our new Senator--Senator from the latest and grandest addition to the radiant galaxy of sovereign States, Cherokee Strip"--(to himself, "that name will shrivel him up!"--but it didn't, in the least, and the Colonel resumed the introduction piteously disheartened and amazed),-- "Senator Hawkins, Mr. Howard Tracy, of--er--" "England." "England!--Why that's im--" "England, yes, native of England." "Recently from there?" "Yes, quite recently." Said the Colonel to himself, "This phan
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122  
123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Hawkins

 
England
 

Senator

 

coming

 

effect

 

remark

 

dramatic

 

Sellers

 
General
 

Howard


drawing

 

Colonel

 

thrown

 

rattled

 

idiotically

 
standing
 

staring

 

noticed

 
bearings
 

gentleman


pardon

 

unembarrassed

 

responded

 

innocent

 
suppose
 

doorplate

 

correctly

 

thousand

 

Cherokee

 

States


native

 

addition

 
radiant
 
galaxy
 

sovereign

 

piteously

 

disheartened

 

amazed

 

introduction

 

resumed


shrivel

 
grandest
 

Recently

 

pardons

 

forgetting

 

briskly

 

defunct

 

courtesies

 
friend
 
latest