I've Been Thinking; or, the Secret of SuccessRoe, A. S. (Azel Stevens)
General
I've Been Thinking; or, the Secret of Success
Roe, A. S. (Azel Stevens)
Conduct of life -- Fiction; Diligence -- Fiction; Success -- Fiction
Mr. Richard has not altered much since we last saw him, either in
appearance or disposition. Why he had come along that afternoon, no one
knew; nor did he seem to be making preparation as though he had a job on
hand. He heard the news of Mr. Rutherford's disaster with apparent
indifference. I say apparent, for there is no doubt he felt much and
deeply; he talked with one and another, making very few remarks, but
asking a great many questions, and occasionally shrugging his shoulders,
and knitting his dark eyebrows--it was a way he had. What effect his
pantomime had upon those with whom he conversed was not very manifest,
for they finally dropped off, one by one, leaving no orders behind them.
It is an old saying, 'If one won't, another will.' Mr. Richard, no doubt,
had heard the saying, and must have had considerable faith in it; for
there was not an individual, either high or low, that escaped his
attentions.
The Irish are proverbially susceptible. Whether Mr. Richard knew this
as a historical fact, I will not pretend to say, nor whether it led him
to make a more direct and positive attack on poor Pat than he had done
upon others that day; the result, however, was, that Jerry Malony, a
rather good-natured fellow, to whom Mr. Rutherford was indebted for a
summer's ditching, and whose pay was as sure as though already in his
own hands, was suddenly seized with great terrors, in view of the
certain loss of all his hard earnings, and with a distressing anxiety to
become possessed, as a means of securing himself, of a pair of fine
black horses, then in the possession of said Rutherford.
We will not enter into all the particulars; suffice it to say, that Mr.
Tucker and Mr. Malony adjourned from the east corner of the piazza to a
private room inside the building, and thence to a justice of the peace,
and thence back again to the bar-room; and, finally, the two worthy
gentlemen were wishing each other very good health, and confirming their
wishes by potent draughts of genuine Monongahela. There were many little
arrangements to be made, which occupied them until the shades of evening
had settled very decidedly upon the land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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