Humorous stories; Washington (State) -- Fiction; Western stories
"Men ain't that way. Angus had took no care of his figure, which was now
pouchy, his hair was gray, and he was either shedding or had been
reached, and he had lines of care and food in his face, and took no
pains whatever with his accent--or with what he said, for that matter. I
never saw a man yet that could hide a disgraceful past like a woman can.
They don't seem to have any pride. Most of 'em act like they don't care
a hoot whether people find it out on 'em or not.
"Angus was always reckless that way, adding to his wife's burden of
anxiety. She'd got her own vile past well buried, but she never knew
when his was going to stick its ugly head up out of its grave. He'd go
along all right for a while like one of the best set had ought to--then
Zooey! We was out to dinner at another millionaire's one night--in that
town you're either a millionaire or drawing wages from one--and Angus
talked along with his host for half an hour about the impossibility of
getting a decent valet on this side of the water, Americans not knowing
their place like the English do, till you'd have thought he was born to
it, and then all at once he breaks out about the hardwood finish to the
dining-room, and how the art of graining has perished and ought to be
revived. 'And I wish I had a silver dollar,' he says, 'for every door
like that one there that I've grained to resemble the natural wood so
cunningly you'd never guess it--hardly.'
"At that his break didn't faze any one but Ellabelle. The host was an
old train-robber who'd cut your throat for two bits--I'll bet he
couldn't play an honest game of solitaire--and he let out himself right
off that he had once worked in a livery stable and was proud of it; but
poor Ellabelle, who'd been talking about the dear Countess of Comtessa
or somebody, and the dukes and earls that was just one-two-three with
her on the other side, she blushed up till it almost showed through the
second coating. Angus was certainly poison ivy to her on occasion, and
he'd refuse to listen to reason when she called him down about it. He'd
do most of the things she asked him to about food and clothes and so
forth--like the time he had the two gold teeth took out and replaced by
real porcelain nature fakers--but he never could understand why he
wasn't free to chat about the days when he earned what money he had.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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