FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   >>  
sed to have something to do to earn their salary, he goes right on with his regular business, selling drugs at the great sacrifice which druggists will make sometimes in order to place their goods within the reach of all. As soon as I learned that Mr. Sweeney had barely escaped being a crowned head, I got acquainted with him and tried to cheer him up, and I told him that people wouldn't hold him in any way responsible, and that, as it hadn't shown itself in his family for years, he might perhaps finally wear it out. He is a mighty pleasant man, anyhow, and you can have just as much fun with him as you could with a man who didn't have any royal blood in his veins. You would be with him for days on a fishing trip and never notice it at all. But I was going to speak more in particular of Mi. Sweeney's cat. Mr. Sweeney had a large cat named Dr. Mary Walker, of which he was very fond. Dr. Mary Walker remained at the drug store all the time, and was known all over St. Paul as a quiet and reserved cat. If Dr. Mary Walker took in the town after office hours nobody seemed to know anything about it. She would be around bright and cheerful the next morning, and attend to her duties at the store just as though nothing whatever had ever happened. One day last summer Mr. Sweeney left a large plate of fly-paper with water on it in the window, hoping to gather in a few quarts of flies in a deceased state. Dr. Mary Walker used to go to this window during the afternoon and look out on the busy street while she called up pleasant memories of her past life. That afternoon she thought she would call up some more memories, so she went over on the counter, and from there jumped down on the window-sill, landing with all four feet in the plate of fly-paper. At first she regarded it as a joke and treated the matter very lightly, but later on she observed that the fly-paper stuck to her feet with great tenacity of purpose. Those who have never seen the look of surprise and deep sorrow that a cat wears when she finds herself glued to a whole sheet of fly-paper can not fully appreciate the way Dr. Mary Walker felt. She did not dash wildly through a $150 plate-glass window, as some cats would have done. She controlled herself and acted in the coolest manner, though you could have seen that mentally she suffered intensely. She sat down a moment to more fully outline a plan for the future. In doing so she made a great mistake. The gesture r
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   >>  



Top keywords:
Walker
 
window
 
Sweeney
 

memories

 
afternoon
 

pleasant

 
counter
 
jumped
 

called

 

quarts


deceased

 
gather
 

summer

 

hoping

 

thought

 
street
 

observed

 

controlled

 

coolest

 

manner


mentally

 

wildly

 

suffered

 

intensely

 

mistake

 

gesture

 

moment

 

outline

 
future
 
lightly

matter

 
treated
 

regarded

 

tenacity

 

purpose

 

surprise

 

sorrow

 

landing

 

people

 

wouldn


acquainted

 
escaped
 

crowned

 

responsible

 

finally

 
family
 
barely
 

learned

 

regular

 
business