- Libros en formato MOBI -
The
Four Million
Tobin and me,
the two of us, went down to Coney one day, for
there was four dollars between us, and Tobin had
need of distractions. For there was Katie
Mahorner, his sweetheart, of County Sligo, lost
since she started for America three months
before with two hundred dollars, her own savings,
and one hundred dollars from the sale of Tobin's
inherited estate, a fine cottage and pig on the
Bog Shannaugh. And since the letter that Tobin
got saying that she had started to come to him
not a bit of news had he heard or seen of Katie
Mahorner. Tobin advertised in the papers, but
nothing could be found of the colleen.
So, to Coney me and Tobin went, thinking that a
turn at the chutes and the smell of the popcorn
might raise the heart in his bosom. But Tobin
was a hardheaded man, and the sadness stuck in
his skin. He ground his teeth at the crying
balloons; he cursed the moving pictures; and,
though he would drink whenever asked, he scorned
Punch and Judy, and was for licking the tintype
men as they came.
So I gets him down a side way on a board walk
where the attractions were some less violent. At
a little six by eight stall Tobin halts, with a
more human look in his eye.
"'Tis here," says he, "I will be diverted. I'll
have the palm of me hand investigated by the
wonderful palmist of the Nile, and see if what
is to be will be."...
The
Trimmed Lamp
Of course there are two sides to the
question. Let us look at the other. We often
hear "shop-girls" spoken of. No such persons
exist. There are girls who work in shops. They
make their living that way. But why turn their
occupation into an adjective? Let us be fair. We
do not refer to the girls who live on Fifth
Avenue as "marriage-girls."
Lou and Nancy were chums. They came to the big
city to find work because there was not enough
to eat at their homes to go around. Nancy was
nineteen; Lou was twenty. Both were pretty,
active, country girls who had no ambition to go
on the stage.
The little cherub that sits up aloft guided them
to a cheap and respectable boarding-house. Both
found positions and became wage-earners. They
remained chums. It is at the end of six months
that I would beg you to step forward and be
introduced to them. Meddlesome Reader: My Lady
friends, Miss Nancy and Miss Lou. While you are
shaking hands please take notice—cautiously—of
their attire. Yes, cautiously; for they are as
quick to resent a stare as a lady in a box at
the horse show is...
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