Flappers and PhilosophersFitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott)
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Flappers and Philosophers
Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott)
Fiction; Short stories, American
Trying to ascertain whether they belonged to a man or a woman,
he took them carefully out of the case and held them up near
his mouth. He moved his own jaws experimentally; he measured
with his fingers; but he failed to decide: they might belong
either to a large-mouthed woman or a small-mouthed man.
On a warm impulse he wrapped them in brown paper from the
bottom of his army trunk, and printed FALSE TEETH on the
package in clumsy pencil letters. Then, the next night, he
walked down Philmore Street, and shied the package onto the
lawn so that it would be near the door. Next day the paper
announced that the police had a clew--they knew that the
burglar was in town. However, they didn't mention what the
clew was.
VII
At the end of a month "Burglar Bill of the Silver District
was the nurse-girl's standby for frightening children. Five
burglaries were attributed to him, but though Dalyrimple had
only committed three, he considered that majority had it and
appropriated the title to himself. He had once been seen--"a
large bloated creature with the meanest face you ever laid eyes
on." Mrs. Henry Coleman, awaking at two o'clock at the beam of
an electric torch flashed in her eye, could not have been
expected to recognize Bryan Dalyrimple at whom she had waved
flags last Fourth of July, and whom she had described as "not
at all the daredevil type, do you think?"
When Dalyrimple kept his imagination at white heat he managed to
glorify his own attitude, his emancipation from petty scruples
and remorses--but let him once allow his thought to rove
unarmored, great unexpected horrors and depressions would
overtake him. Then for reassurance he had to go back to think
out the whole thing over again. He found that it was on the
whole better to give up considering himself as a rebel. It was
more consoling to think of every one else as a fool.
His attitude toward Mr. Macy underwent a change. He no longer
felt a dim animosity and inferiority in his presence. As his
fourth month in the store ended he found himself regarding his
employer in a manner that was almost fraternal. He had a vague
but very assured conviction that Mr. Macy's innermost soul would
have abetted and approved. He no longer worried about his
future. He had the intention of accumulating several thousand
dollars and then clearing out--going east, back to France, down
to South America. Half a dozen times in the last two months he
had been about to stop work, but a fear of attracting attention
to his being in funds prevented him. So he worked on, no longer
in listlessness, but with contemptuous amusement.
VIII
Then with astounding suddenness something happened that changed
his plans and put an end to his burglaries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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