Off-Hand Sketches, a Little Dashed with HumorArthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay)
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Off-Hand Sketches, a Little Dashed with Humor
Arthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay)
Fiction; Short stories
"Not at all. The moral effect will tell upon our silly young ladies,
whose heads are turned with a foreign accent and a hairy lip. You
acted the whiskered fop to a charm. No one could have dreamed that
all was counterfeit."
"So far as the general effect is concerned, I have no doubt; but I'm
afraid it was wrong to victimize Miss Arabella for the benefit of
the whole race of weak-minded girls. The effect upon her may be more
serious than we apprehend."
"No, I think not. The woman who could pass by as true a young man as
Abel Lee for a foreign count in disguise, hasn't heart enough to
receive a deep injury. She will be terribly mortified, but that will
do her good."
"If it turn out no worse than that, I shall be glad. But I must own,
now that the whole thing is over, that I am not as well satisfied
with myself as I thought I would be. I don't know what my good
sisters at the South would say, if they knew I had been engaged in
such a mad-cap affair. But I lay all the blame upon you. You, with
your cool head, ought to have known better than to start a young
hot-brained fellow like me, just let loose from college, upon such a
wild adventure. I'm afraid that if Jones had once got me fairly into
his clutches, he would have made daylight shine through me."
"Ha! ha! No doubt of it. But come, don't begin to look long-faced.
We will keep our own counsel, and no one need be the wiser for our
participation in this matter. Wait a while, and let us enjoy the
nine days' wonder that will follow."
But the young man, who was a relative of Marston, and who had come
to the city fresh from college, just in the nick of time for the
latter, felt, now that the excitement of his wild prank was over, a
great deal more sober about the matter than he had expected to feel.
Reason and reflection told him that he had no right to trifle with
any one as he had trifled with Arabella Jones. But it was too late
to mend the matter. No great harm, however, came of it; and perhaps,
good; for a year subsequently, Abel Lee conducted his old flame to
the altar, and she makes him a loving and faithful wife.
JOB'S COMFORTERS;
OR, THE LADY WITH NERVES.
WHAT a blessed era in the world's history that was when the ladies
had no nerves! Alas! I was born too late instead of too early, as
the complaint of some is. I am cursed with nerves, and, as a
consequence, am ever and anon distressed with nervous fears of some
direful calamity or painful affliction. I am a simpleton for this, I
know; but then, how can I help it? I try to be a woman of sense, but
my nerves are too delicately strung. Reason is not sufficient to
subdue the fears of impending evil that too often haunt me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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