David Harum: A Story of American LifeWestcott, Edward Noyes
General
David Harum: A Story of American Life
Westcott, Edward Noyes
Bankers -- Fiction; New York (State) -- Fiction
"They didn't appear to, fer a fact," said David, "an' I didn't either,
after I'd slipped up once or twice on the matter of pockets. The same
feller brought 'em up to me that fetched the stuff in the mornin'; an'
the rig was complete--coat, vest, pants, shirt, white necktie, an', by
gum! shoes an' silk socks, an', sir, scat my ----! the hull outfit
fitted me as if it was made fer me. 'Shell I wait on you, sir?' says the
man. 'No,' I says, 'I guess I c'n git into the things; but mebbe you
might come up in 'bout quarter of an hour an' put on the finishin'
touches, an' here,' I says, 'I guess that brand of eggs you give me this
mornin' 's wuth about two dollars apiece.'
"'Thank you, sir,' he says, grinnin', 'I'd like to furnish 'em right
along at that rate, sir, an' I'll be up as you say, sir.'"
"You found the way to _his_ heart," said John, smiling.
"My experience is," said David dryly, "that most men's hearts is located
ruther closter to their britchis pockets than they are to their breast
pockets."
"I'm afraid that's so," said John.
"But this feller," Mr. Harum continued, "was a putty decent kind of a
chap. He come up after I'd got into my togs an' pulled me here, an'
pulled me there, an' fixed my necktie, an' hitched me in gen'ral so'st I
wa'n't neither too tight nor too free, an' when he got through, 'You'll
do now, sir,' he says.
"'Think I will?' says I.
"'Couldn't nobody look more fit, sir,' he says, an' I'm dum'd," said
David, with an assertive nod, "when I looked at myself in the
lookin'-glass. I scurcely knowed myself, an' (with a confidential
lowering of the voice) when I got back to New York the very fust hard
work I done was to go an' buy the hull rig-out--an'," he added with a
grin, "strange as it may appear, it ain't wore out _yit_."
CHAPTER XXVII.
"People don't dress for dinner in Homeville, as a rule, then," John
said, smiling.
"No," said Mr. Harum, "when they dress fer breakfust that does 'em fer
all three meals. I've wore them things two three times when I've ben
down to the city, but I never had 'em on but once up here."
"No?" said John.
"No," said David, "I put 'em on _once_ to show to Polly how city folks
dressed--he, he, he, he!--an' when I come into the room she set forwud
on her chair an' stared at me over her specs. 'What on airth!' she says.
"'I bought these clo'es,' I says, 'to wear when bein' ent'tained by the
fust fam'lies. How do I look?' I says.
"'Turn 'round,' she says. 'You look f'm behind,' she says, 'like a
red-headed snappin' bug, an' in front,' she says, as I turned agin,
'like a reg'lar slinkum. I'll bet,' she says, 'that you hain't throwed
away less 'n twenty dollars on that foolishniss.' Polly's a very
conserv'tive person," remarked her brother, "and don't never imagine a
vain thing, as the Bible says, not when she _knows_ it, an' I thought it
wa'n't wuth while to argue the point with her."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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