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
“Uh—sure! Now I’m going to be a cruel boss.”
“Dee-lighted! Are you going to be a caveman?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t quite get you on that.”
“That’s too bad, isn’t it. I think I’d rather like to meet a caveman.”
“Oh say, I know about that caveman—Jack London’s guys. I’m afraid I
ain’t one. Still—on the cattle-boat—Say, I wish you could of seen it
when the gang were tying up the bulls, before starting. Dark close
place ’tween-decks, with the steers bellowin’ and all packed tight
together, and the stiffs gettin’ seasick—so seasick we just kind of
staggered around; and we’d get hold of a head rope and yank and then
let go, and the bosses’d yell, ‘Pull, or I’ll brain you.’ And then the
fo’c’sle—men packed in like herrings.”
She was leaning over the table, making a labyrinth with the currants
from a cake and listening intently. He stopped politely, feeling that
he was talking too much. But, “Go on, please do,” she commanded, and he
told simply, seeing it more and more, of Satan and the Grenadier, of
the fairies who had beckoned to him from the Irish coast hills, and the
comradeship of Morton.
She interrupted only once, murmuring, “My dear, it’s a good thing
you’re articulate, anyway—” which didn’t seem to have any bearing on
hay-bales.
She sent him away with a light “It’s been a good party, hasn’t it,
caveman? (If you _are_ a caveman.) Call for me tomorrow at three. We’ll
go to the Tate Gallery.”
She touched his hand in the fleetingest of grasps.
“Yes. Good night, Miss Nash,” he quavered.
A morning of planning his conduct so that in accompanying Istra Nash to
the Tate Gallery he might be the faithful shadow and beautiful
transcript of Mittyford, Ph.D. As a result, when he stood before the
large canvases of Mr. Watts at the Tate he was so heavy and correctly
appreciative, so ready not to enjoy the stories in the pictures of
Millais, that Istra suddenly demanded:
“Oh, my dear child, I have taken a great deal on my hands. You’ve got
to learn to play. You don’t know how to play. Come. I shall teach you.
I don’t know why I should, either. But—come.”
She explained as they left the gallery: “First, the art of riding on
the buses. Oh, it is an art, you know. You must appreciate the
flower-girls and the gr-r-rand young bobbies. You must learn to watch
for the blossoms on the restaurant terraces and roll on the grass in
the parks. You’re much too respectable to roll on the grass, aren’t
you? I’ll try ever so hard to teach you not to be. And we’ll go to tea.
How many kinds of tea are there?”
“Oh, Ceylon and English Breakfast and—oh—Chinese.”
“B—”
“And golf tees!” he added, excitedly, as they took a seat in front atop
the bus.
“Puns are a beginning at least,” she reflected.
“But how many kinds of tea _are_ there, Istra?… Oh say, I hadn’t ought
to—”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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