City and town life -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
He rushed about New York strenuously attending to business concerning
himself and his extraordinary acquaintances, and on the day of the
steamer's sailing he presented himself at the last moment in an
obviously just purchased suit of horribly cut clothes. At all events,
their cut was horrible in the eyes of Mr. Palford, who accepted no
cut but that of a West End tailor. They were badly made things enough,
because they were unconsidered garments that Tembarom had barely found
time to snatch from a “ready-made” counter at the last moment. He had
been too much “rushed” by other things to remember that he must have
them until almost too late to get them at all. He bought them merely
because they were clothes, and warm enough to make a voyage in. He
possessed a monster ulster, in which, to Mr. Palford's mind, he
looked like a flashy black-leg. He did not know it was flashy. His
opportunities for cultivating a refined taste in the matter of wardrobe
had been limited, and he had wasted no time in fastidious consideration
or regrets. Palford did him some injustice in taking it for granted that
his choice of costume was the result of deliberate bad taste. It was
really not choice at all. He neither liked his clothes nor disliked
them. He had been told he needed warm garments, and he had accepted the
advice of the first salesman who took charge of him when he dropped into
the big department store he was most familiar with because it was the
cheapest in town. Even when it was no longer necessary to be cheap, it
was time-saving and easy to go into a place one knew.
The fact that he was as he was, and that they were the subjects of
comment and objects of unabated interest through-out the voyage, that it
was proper that they should be companions at table and on deck, filled
Mr. Palford with annoyed unease.
Of course every one on board was familiar with the story of the
discovery of the lost heir. The newspapers had reveled in it, and had
woven romances about it which might well have caused the deceased Mr.
Temple Barholm to turn in his grave. After the first day Tembarom had
been picked out from among the less-exciting passengers, and when he
walked the deck, books were lowered into laps or eyes followed him over
their edges. His steamer-chair being placed in a prominent position
next to that of a pretty, effusive Southern woman, the mother of three
daughters whose eyes and eyelashes attracted attention at the
distance of a deck's length, he was without undue delay provided
with acquaintances who were prepared to fill his every moment with
entertainment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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