Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle ManLewis, Sinclair
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Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man
Lewis, Sinclair
Courtship -- Fiction; Love stories; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Middle-aged men -- United States -- Fiction
He was to see Tom Poppins the coming Thursday at Miggleton’s. And now
he was going to find Morton! He laughed so loudly that the policeman at
Thirty-fourth Street looked self-conscious and felt secretively to find
out what was the matter with his uniform. Now, this evening, he’d try
to get on the track of Morton. Well, perhaps not this evening—the
Pennsylvania offices wouldn’t be open, but some time this week, anyway.
Two nights later, as he waited for Tom Poppins at Miggleton’s, he
lashed himself with the thought that he had not started to find Morton;
good old Morton of the cattle-boat. But that was forgotten in the
wonder of Tom Poppins’s account of Mrs. Arty’s, a boarding-house “where
all the folks likes each other.”
“You’ve never fed at a boarding-house, eh?” said Tom. “Well, I guess
most of ’em are pretty poor feed. And pretty sad bunch. But Mrs. Arty’s
is about as near like home as most of us poor bachelors ever gets. Nice
crowd there. If Mrs. Arty—Mrs. R. T. Ferrard is her name, but we always
call her Mrs. Arty—if she don’t take to you she don’t mind letting you
know she won’t take you in at all; but if she does she’ll worry over
the holes in your socks as if they was her husband’s. All the bunch
there drop into the parlor when they come in, pretty near any time
clear up till twelve-thirty, and talk and laugh and rush the growler
and play Five Hundred. Just like home!
“Mrs. Arty’s nearly as fat as I am, but she can be pretty spry if
there’s something she can do for you. Nice crowd there, too except that
Teddem—he’s one of these here Willy-boy actors, always out of work; I
guess Mrs. Arty is kind of sorry for him. Say, Wrenn—you seem to me
like a good fellow—why don’t you get acquainted with the bunch? Maybe
you’d like to move up there some time. You was telling me about what a
cranky old party your landlady is. Anyway, come on up there to dinner.
On me. Got anything on for next Monday evening?”
“N-no.”
“Come on up then——East Thirtieth.”
“Gee, I’d like to!”
“Well, why don’t you, then? Get there about six. Ask for me. Monday.
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I don’t have to get to the store
evenings. Come on; you’ll find out if you like the place.”
“By jiminy, I will!” Mr. Wrenn slapped the table, socially.
At last he was “through, just _through_ with loafing around and not
getting acquainted,” he told himself. He was tired of Zapps. There was
nothing to Zapps. He would go up to Mrs. Arty’s and now—he was going to
find Morton. Next morning, marveling at himself for not having done
this easy task before, he telephoned to the Pennsylvania Railroad
offices, asked for Morton, and in one-half minute heard:
“Yes? This is Harry Morton.”
“Hullo, Mr. Morton! I’ll just bet you can’t guess who this is.”
“I guess you’ve got me.”
“Well, who do you think it—”
“Jack?”
“Hunka.”
“Uncle Henry?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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