The Dodge Club; Or, Italy in MDCCCLIXDe Mille, James
Philosophy
The Dodge Club; Or, Italy in MDCCCLIX
De Mille, James
Italy -- Fiction
The organ projected from the wall about six feet; on the left side
was the handle worked by the man who blew it, and a space for the
choir. On the right was a small narrow space not more than about
three feet wide, and it was in this space that they saw the figure
which produced such an effect on them.
It was the Senator. He stood there erect, bare-headed of course,
with confusion in his face and vexation and bewilderment. The sight
of him was enough--the astonishing position of the man, in such a
place at such a time. But the Senator was looking eagerly for help.
And he had seen them enter, and all his soul was in his eyes, and all
his eyes were fixed on those two.
As Dick looked up startled and confounded at the sight, the Senator
projected his head as far forward as he dared, frowned, nodded, and
then began working his lips violently as certain deaf and dumb people
do, who converse by such movements, and can understand what words are
said by the shape of the mouth in uttering them. But the effect was
to make the Senator buck like a man who was making grimaces, to
wager, like those in Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame." As such the
apparition was so over-powering that neither Buttons nor Dick dared
to look up for some time. What made it worse, each was conscious that
the other was laughing, so that self-control was all the more
difficult. Worse still, each knew that this figure in the organ-loft
was watching them with his hungry glance, ready the moment that they
looked up to begin his grimaces once more.
"That poor Senator!" thought Buttons; "how did he get there? Oh, how
did he get there?"
Yet how could he be rescued? Could he be? No. He must wait till the
service should be over.
Meanwhile the young men mustered sufficient courage to look up again,
and after a mighty struggle to gaze upon the Senator for a few
seconds at a time at least. There he stood, projecting forward his
anxious face, making faces as each one looked up.
[Illustration: The Senator.]
Now the people in the immediate vicinity of the two young men had
noticed their agitation as has already been stated, and, moreover,
they had looked up to see the cause of it. They too saw the Senator.
Others again, seeing their neighbors looking up, did the same, until
at last all in the transept were staring up at the odd-looking
stranger.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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