The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of HimFord, Paul Leicester
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The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him
Ford, Paul Leicester
Labor movement -- Fiction; Love stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Political fiction; Tenement houses -- Fiction
As for Peter, he did not put his feelings into good docketed shape. He
did not attempt to label them at all. He had had a delicious half-hour
yesterday. He had decided, the evening before, that he must see those
slate-colored eyes again, if he had to go round the world in pursuit of
them. How he should do it, he had not even thought out, till the next
morning. He had understood very clearly that the owner of those
slate-colored eyes was really an unknown quantity to him. He had
understood, too, that the chances were very much against his caring to
pursue those eyes after he knew them better. But he was adamant that he
must see those eyes again, and prove for himself whether they were but
an _ignis fatuus_, or the radiant stars that Providence had cast for
the horoscope of Peter Stirling. He was studying those eyes, with their
concomitants, at the present time. He was studying them very coolly, to
judge from his appearance and conduct. Yet he was enjoying the study in
a way that he had never enjoyed the study of somebody “On Torts.”
Somebody “On Torts,” never looked like that. Somebody “On Torts,” never
had luck-pieces, and silk ribbons. Somebody “On Torts,” never wrote
letters and touched the end of pens to its lips. Somebody “On Torts,”
never courtesied, nor looked out from under its eyelashes, nor called
him Peter.
While this investigation had been progressing, Watts had looked at the
shelf of law books, had looked out of the window, had whistled, and had
yawned. Finally, in sheer _ennui_ he had thrown open a door, and looked
to see what lay beyond.
“Ha, ha!” he cried. “All is discovered. See! Here sits Peter Stirling,
the ward politician, enthroned in Jeffersonian simplicity. But here,
behind the arras, sits Peter Stirling, the counsellor of banks and
railroads, in the midst of all the gorgeousness of the golden East.”
Watts passed into the room beyond.
“What does he mean, Peter?”
“He has gone into my study. Would you like—”
He was interrupted by Watts calling, “Come in here, Dot, and see how
the unsociable old hermit bestows himself.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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