Telescopes turned up next. He lingered a moment over 20 T 3513, a
nickel-plated cap pocket-glass, reflecting that with it he could discern
any signal on the distant wooded butte occupied by Miss Camilla Van
Arsdale, back on the forest trail, in the event that she might wish a
wire sent or any other service performed. Miss Camilla had been very
kind and understanding at the time of the parting with Carlotta, albeit
with a grimly humorous disapproval of the whole inflammatory affair; as
well as at other times; and there was nothing that he would not do for
her. He made a neat entry in a pocket ledger (3 T 9901) against the time
when he should have spare cash, and essayed another plunge.
Arctics and Lumberman's Overs he passed by with a grin as inappropriate
to the climate. Cod Liver Oil failed to interest him, as did the
Provident Cast Iron Range and the Clean-Press Cider Mill. But he paused
speculatively before Punching Bags, for he had the clean pride of body,
typical of lusty Western youth, and loved all forms of exercise. Could
he find space, he wondered, to install 6 T 1441 with its Scientific
Noiseless Platform & Wall Attachment (6 T 1476) in the portable house
(55 S 17) which, purchased a year before, now stood in the clearing
behind the station crammed with purchases from the Sears-Roebuck
wonderbook. Anyway, he would make another note of it. What would it be
like, he wondered, to have a million dollars to spend, and unlimited
access to the Sears-Roebuck treasures. Picturing himself as such a
Croesus, he innocently thought that his first act would be to take train
for Chicago and inspect the warehoused accumulations of those princes of
trade with his own eager eyes!
He mused humorously for a moment over a book on "Ease in Conversation."
("No trouble about conversation," he reflected; "the difficulty is to
find anybody to converse with," and he thought first of Carlotta, and
then of Miss Camilla Van Arsdale, but chiefly of the latter, for
conversation had not been the strong point of the passionate,
light-hearted Spanish girl.) Upon a volume kindly offering to teach
astronomy to the lay mind without effort or trouble (43 T 790) and
manifestly cheap at $1.10, he bestowed a more respectful attention, for
the desert nights were long and lonely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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