Aladdin & Co.: A Romance of Yankee Magic — John Shaqi
Aladdin & Co.: A Romance of Yankee MagicQuick, Herbert
General
Aladdin & Co.: A Romance of Yankee Magic
Quick, Herbert
Fiction
Mr. Cornish was to return on Friday with the Honorable De Forest
Barr-Smith, who lived in London and "represented English capital." To us
Westerners the very hyphen of his name spoke eloquently of L s. d.
Through him we hoped to get the money to build that street railway.
Cornish had written that Mr. Barr-Smith wanted to look the thing over
personally; and that, given the element of safety, his people would much
prefer an investment of a million to one of ten thousand. Cornish
further hinted that the London gentleman acted like a man who wanted a
side interest in the construction company; as to which he would sound
him further by the way.
"He'll expect something in the way of birds and bottles," observed
Elkins; "but they won't mix with the general society of this town, where
the worm of the still is popularly supposed to be the original Edenic
tempter. And he'll want to inspect Lynhurst Park. I want him to see our
beauty and our chivalry,--meaning the ladies and Captain Tolliver,--and
the rest of our best people. I guess we'll have to make it a temperate
sort of orgy, making up in the spectacular what it lacks in
spirituousness."
Mr. Cornish came, gradually moulting his mystery; but still far above
the Lattimore standard in dress and style of living. In truth, he always
had a good deal of the swell in his make-up, and can almost be acquitted
of deceit in the impressions conveyed at his coming. The Honorable De
Forest Barr-Smith fraternized with Cornish, as he could with no one
else. No one looking at Mr. Cornish could harbor a doubt as to his
morning tub; and his evening dress was always correct. With Jim, Mr.
Barr-Smith went into the discussion of business propositions freely and
confidentially. I feel sure that had he greatly desired a candid
statement of the very truth as to local views, or the exact judgment of
one on the spot, he would have come to me. But between him and Cornish
there was the stronger sympathy of a common understanding of the occult
intricacies of clothes, and a view-point as to the surface of things,
embracing manifold points of agreement. Cornish's unerring conformity
of vogue in the manner and as to the occasion of wearing the tuxedo or
the claw-hammer coat was clearly restful to Mr. Barr-Smith, in this new
and strange country, where, if danger was to be avoided, things had to
be approached with distended nostril and many preliminary snuffings of
the wind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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