FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75  
76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   >>   >|  
rience is something we must buy; it isn't left in somebody's will. Let us say that I possess all the necessary attributes save one." "And what is that?" "Youth, Kitty. And take the word of a senile old dotard, your young man, when you find him, will lack many of the attributes you require. On the other hand, there is always the possibility that these will develop as you jog along. The terrible pity of youth is that it has the habit of conferring these attributes rather than finding them. You put garlands on the heads of snow images, and the first glare of sunshine--pouf!" "Cutty, I'm beginning to like you immensely"--smiling. "Perhaps women ought to have two husbands--one young and handsome and the other old and wise like yourself." Cutty wished he were alone in order to analyze the stab. Old! When he knew that mentally and physically he could take and break a dozen Two-Hawks. Old! He had never thought himself that. Fifty-two years; they had piled up on him without his appreciation of the fullness of the score. And yet he was more than a match for any ordinary man of thirty in sinew and brain; and no man met the new morning with more zest than he himself met it. But to Kitty he was old! Lavender and oak leaves were being draped on his door knob. He laughed. "Why do you laugh?" "Oh, because--Hark!" The two of them ran to the bedroom door. "Olga! Olga!" And then a guttural level jumble of sounds. Kitty's quick brain reached out for a similitude--water rushing over ragged boulders. "Olga!" she whispered. "He is a Russian!" "There are Serbian Olgas and Bulgarian Olgas and Rumanian Olgas. Probably his sweetheart." "The poor thing!" "Sounds like Russian," added Cutty, his conscience pricking him. But he welcomed that "Olga." It would naturally put a damper on Kitty's interest. "There's Harrison with the nurse." Quarter of an hour later the patient was taken down to the ambulance and conveyed to the private hospital. Cutty had no way of ascertaining whether they were followed; but he hoped they would be. The knowledge that their victim was in a near-by hospital would naturally serve to relax the enemy vigilance temporarily; and this would permit safely and secretly the second leg of the journey--that to his own apartment. He decided to let an hour go past; then Two-Hawks was taken through the building to the rear and transferred to the truck. Cutty sat with the driver while Captain Harrison a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75  
76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
attributes
 

Russian

 

hospital

 

naturally

 

Harrison

 

Probably

 
Bulgarian
 

Serbian

 

Rumanian

 

sweetheart


bedroom

 

guttural

 

laughed

 

jumble

 
rushing
 

ragged

 

boulders

 

similitude

 

sounds

 

reached


whispered
 

secretly

 

journey

 
safely
 
permit
 

vigilance

 

temporarily

 

apartment

 

decided

 

driver


Captain

 

transferred

 

building

 

interest

 

Quarter

 

patient

 

damper

 
Sounds
 

conscience

 

pricking


welcomed

 

ambulance

 
conveyed
 
knowledge
 

victim

 

private

 
ascertaining
 

develop

 
possibility
 

require