The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of HimFord, Paul Leicester
General
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
“Brethren,” yelled Podds, “the foot of the tyrant is on us. Rise. Rise
in your might.” Then Podds turned to find the rigid line of bayonets
close upon him. He gave a spring, and grappled with Peter, throwing his
arms about Peter’s neck. Peter caught him by the throat with his free
arm.
“Don’t push me off,” shrieked Podds in his ear, “it’s coming,” and he
clung with desperate energy to Peter.
Peter gave a twist with his arm. He felt the tight clasp relax, and the
whole figure shudder. He braced his arm for a push, intending to send
Podds flying across the street.
But suddenly there was a flash, as of lightning. Then a crash. Then the
earth shook, cobble-stones, railroad tracks, anarchists, and soldiers,
rose in the air, leaving a great chasm in crowd and street. Into that
chasm a moment later, stones, rails, anarchists, and soldiers fell,
leaving nothing but a thick cloud of overhanging dust. Underneath that
great dun pall lay soldier and anarchist, side by side, at last at
peace. The one died for his duty, the other died for his idea. The
world was none the better, but went on unchanged.
CHAPTER LVII
HAPPINESS
The evening on which Peter had left Grey-Court, Leonore had been moved
“for sundry reasons” to go to her piano and sing an English ballad
entitled “Happiness.” She had sung it several times, and with gusto.
The next morning she read the political part of the papers. “I don’t
see anything to have taken him back,” she said “but I am really glad,
for he was getting hard to manage. I couldn’t send him away, but now I
hope he’ll stay there.” Then Leonore fluttered all day, in the true
Newport style, with no apparent thought of her “friend.”
But something at a dinner that evening interested her.
“I’m ashamed,” said the hostess, “of my shortage of men. Marlow was
summoned back to New York last night, by business, quite unexpectedly,
and Mr. Dupont telegraphed me this afternoon that he was detained
there.”
“It’s curious,” said Dorothy. “Mr. Rivington and my brother came on
Tuesday expecting to stay for a week, but they had special delivery
letters yesterday, and both started for New York. They would not tell
me what it was.”
“Mr. Stirling received a special delivery, too,” said Leonore, “and
started at once. And he wouldn’t tell.”
“How extraordinary!” said the hostess. “There must be something very
good at the roof-gardens.”
“It has something to do with headwears,” said Leonore, not hiding her
light under a bushel.
“Headwear?” said a man.
“Yes,” said Leonore. “I only had a glimpse of the heading, but I saw
‘Headwears N.G.S.N.Y.’”
A sudden silence fell, no one laughing at the mistake.
“What’s the matter?” asked Leonore.
“We are wondering what will happen,” said the host, “if men go in for
headwear too.”
“They do that already,” said a man, “but unlike women, they do it on
the inside, not the outside of the head.”
But nobody laughed, and the dinner seemed to drag from that moment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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