City and town life -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
“If I don't take it for you, some one will knock you upon the head for
it.” Tembarom hesitated, but the next instant he stuffed it all in his
pocket, incited thereto by the sound of a whizzing roar.
“There's the 'L' coming,” he cried; “run for all you're worth.” And they
fled up the street and up the steps, and caught it without a second to
spare.
CHAPTER V
At about the time Tembarom made his rush to catch the “L” Joseph
Hutchinson was passing through one of his periodical fits of infuriated
discouragement. Little Ann knew they would occur every two or three
days, and she did not wonder at them. Also she knew that if she merely
sat still and listened as she sewed, she would be doing exactly what
her mother would have done and what her father would find a sort of
irritated comfort in. There was no use in citing people's villainies and
calling them names unless you had an audience who would seem to agree to
the justice of your accusations.
So Mr. Hutchinson charged up and down the room, his face red, and his
hands thrust in his coat pockets. He was giving his opinions of America
and Americans, and he spoke with his broadest Manchester accent,
and threw in now and then a word or so of Lancashire dialect to add
roughness and strength, the angrier a Manchester man being, the broader
and therefore the more forcible his accent. “Tha” is somehow a great
deal more bitter or humorous or affectionate than the mere ordinary
“You” or “Yours.”
“'Merica,” he bellowed--“dang 'Merica! I says--an' dang 'Mericans. Goin'
about th' world braggin' an' boastin' about their sharpness an' their
open-'andedness. 'Go to 'Merica,' folks'll tell you, 'with an invention,
and there's dozens of millionaires ready to put money in it.' Fools!”
“Now, Father,”--Little Ann's voice was as maternal as her mother's had
been,--“now, Father, love, don't work yourself up into a passion. You
know it's not good for you.”
“I don't need to work myself up into one. I'm in one. A man sells
everything he owns to get to 'Merica, an' when he gets there what does
he find? He canna' get near a millionaire. He's pushed here an scuffled
there, an' told this chap can't see him, an' that chap isn't interested,
an' he must wait his chance to catch this one. An' he waits an' waits,
an' goes up in elevators an' stands on one leg in lobbies, till he's
broke' down an' sick of it, an' has to go home to England steerage.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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