Our Square and the People in ItAdams, Samuel Hopkins
General
Our Square and the People in It
Adams, Samuel Hopkins
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Short stories
“Do not strike him again,” she bade Old Sally, composedly, and that
faithful amazon dropped her bottle and lost fifty cents' worth of
catchup.
“Come home before you get into trouble,” was the lady's command to the
now cowed and repentant tailor.
Whimpering and rubbing his head, he suffered himself to be marched back
to his Home of Fashion. So promptly was the retirement executed that
Terry the Cop never knew (officially) what had taken place. Unofficially
all of Our Square knew. And the following day a deputation of us marched
MacLachan around to No. 17 to apologize. As we stood on the stairway
awaiting her pleasure, we could hear Madam Rachel Pinckney Pemberton
Tallafferr directing Old Sally to inform the deputation that she had
not, to the best of her recollection, evinced any intention of receiving
on that particular day, and that she sent her compliments to us, and was
not at home.
“That's the high-toned way of saying she don't want to see us,” chirped
the admiring Mr. Boggs between gratification and apology. “Aristocrat to
the finger tips! Haven't I always told you so?”
He had, to the uttermost wearying of the flesh. But there came a time
when he boasted less assuredly of his top-floor grandeur. To the little
circle at the Elite Restaurant it became evident that something was
preying upon the blithe spirit of the Angel of Death, something having
to do with his Duchess. One evening, in a burst of confidence, he
unburdened himself to the Little Red Doctor and me. Madam was, he
feared, losing interest in the lofty social sphere to which she had
been called. Seldom, nowadays, did she go in her full regalia uptown.
Automobiles came no more to his flattered door. Worst of all, her
fascinating mail had dwindled. Where formerly there would be as many as
eight or ten envelopes per week, decorated with splendid and significant
insignia and inclosing proud and stiff cardboard, now there was but one
regular communication of the sort, the letter bearing the mystic double
circle of the Spirit of Guidance Group and, as that was postmarked
Brooklyn, Mr. Boggs had a small notion of its social import. Most of her
days the aristocratic lodger now spent at solitaire, with Sempronius,
the black cat, for critic. Mr. Boggs surmised sadly that the goddess of
his top-floor Olympus was growing old.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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