Humorous stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
"For one thing, he's got a way of looking around as if it was my house
that was the main thing and I was the last and smallest piece of
cross-paper tied in the kite's tail. To my order of thinking, that's a
far from polite way for a young man as Jathrop's hiring and boarding to
look on a woman whose house he may thank his lucky stars if he may get
the chance to build over. Mrs. Macy says Mrs. Lupey says architects is
all like that, but I'm far from seeing why. I don't consider that young
man superior a _tall_. I consider his brains as very far from being
equal to my own. When he asks me to hold the other end of his tape-line
and does it just as if a pin would do as well, only I was handier at the
moment, I'm very far from feeling flattered. I never saw just such a
young man before, and when I think of being delivered up to him--house
and all--for the summer, I'm also very far from feeling easy. I d'n
know, I'm sure, what will be the end of this, but I do know that it
looks to me like a pretty bad business."
Susan paused again and looked at her friend, but Mrs. Lathrop just
rocked onward. Life had widened so tremendously for her that she
couldn't possibly be perturbed in any way or by anything. If the roof
fell in, Jathrop would buy her another, and if she were smashed by it,
Jathrop would have her put together again. Why worry?
The young man remained ten days in all, and when his visit of
investigation was completed, he returned to New York. Jathrop took him
to the Lotus Club to wash and to the Yacht Club to lunch and to
Claremont in the afternoon (in his motor), and they talked it all over.
The young man had his sketches, ideas, ideals, and plans all tied into a
neat patent cover with cost-estimates lightly glued in the back. Jathrop
was deeply interested, and the young man expounded the inmost soul of
all his measurements and proposed altitudes and alterations. The young
man reminded Jathrop of his pertinent hypothesis that a house should
express its owner. Jathrop's own view of "express" was that if you
could pay the bill, it beat freighting all out of sight, but he felt
that perhaps the young man meant something different, so he merely gave
him a cigar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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