Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man — John Shaqi
Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle ManLewis, Sinclair
General
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
The caravan of Trubiggs’s cattlemen who left for Portland by night
steamer, Friday, was headed by a bulky-shouldered boss, who wore no
coat and whose corduroy vest swung cheerfully open. A motley troupe
were the cattlemen—Jews with small trunks, large imitation-leather
valises and assorted bundles, a stolid prophet-bearded procession of
weary men in tattered derbies and sweat-shop clothes.
There were Englishmen with rope-bound pine chests. A lewd-mouthed
American named Tim, who said he was a hatter out of work, and a
loud-talking tough called Pete mingled with a straggle of hoboes.
The boss counted the group and selected his confidants for the trip to
Portland—Mr. Wrenn and a youth named Morton.
Morton was a square heavy-fleshed young man with stubby hands, who, up
to his eyes, was stolid and solid as a granite monument, but merry of
eye and hinting friendliness in his tousled soft-brown hair. He was
always wielding a pipe and artfully blowing smoke through his nostrils.
Mr. Wrenn and he smiled at each other searchingly as the Portland boat
pulled out, and a wind swept straight from the Land of Elsewhere.
After dinner Morton, smoking a pipe shaped somewhat like a golf-stick
head and somewhat like a toad, at the rail of the steamer, turned to
Mr. Wrenn with:
“Classy bunch of cattlemen we’ve got to go with. Not!… My name’s
Morton.”
“I’m awful glad to meet you, Mr. Morton. My name’s Wrenn.”
“Glad to be off at last, ain’t you?”
“Golly! I should say I _am!_”
“So’m I. Been waiting for this for years. I’m a clerk for the P. R. R.
in N’ York.”
“I come from New York, too.”
“So? Lived there long?”
“Uh-huh, I—” began Mr. Wrenn.
“Well, I been working for the Penn. for seven years now. Now I’ve got a
vacation of three months. On me. Gives me a chance to travel a little.
Got ten plunks and a second-class ticket back from Glasgow. But I’m
going to see England and France just the same. Prob’ly Germany, too.”
“Second class? Why don’t you go steerage, and save?”
“Oh, got to come back like a gentleman. You know. You’re from New York,
too, eh?”
“Yes, I’m with an art-novelty company on Twenty-eighth Street. I been
wanting to get away for quite some time, too…. How are you going to
travel on ten dollars?”
“Oh, work m’ way. Cinch. Always land on my feet. Not on my uppers, at
that. I’m only twenty-eight, but I’ve been on my own, like the English
fellow says, since I was twelve…. Well, how about you? Traveling or
going somewhere?”
“Just traveling. I’m glad we’re going together, Mr. Morton. I don’t
think most of these cattlemen are very nice. Except for the old Jews.
They seem to be fine old coots. They make you think of—oh—you
know—prophets and stuff. Watch ’em, over there, making tea. I suppose
the steamer grub ain’t kosher. I seen one on the Joy Line saying his
prayers—I suppose he was—in a kind of shawl.”
“Well, well! You don’t say so!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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