The Queen of Sheba, and My Cousin the Colonel — John Shaqi
The Queen of Sheba, and My Cousin the ColonelAldrich, Thomas Bailey
General
The Queen of Sheba, and My Cousin the Colonel
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey
Fiction
I have not the time or space, my dear uncle, to give you even a
catalogue of the miseries that followed on the heels of this deplorable
marriage; besides, you can imagine them. Old Lynde, loving both his
wife and his nephew, was by turns violent and feeble; the wife cool,
cunning, and insidious--a Vivien of forty leading Merlin by the beard.
I am not prepared to contend that the nephew was always in the right,
but I know he always got the worst of it, which amounts to about the
same thing. At the end of eight or ten months he saw that the position
was untenable, packed his trunk one night, and quitted the MENAGE--the
menagerie, as he calls it.
This was three weeks ago. Having a small property of his own, some
fifteen hundred dollars a year, I believe, Lynde at first thought to go
abroad. It was always his dream to go abroad. But I persuaded him out
of that, seeing how perilous it would be for a young fellow of his
inexperience and impressible disposition to go rambling alone over the
Continent. Paris was his idea. Paris would not make a mouthful of him.
I have talked him out of that, I repeat, and have succeeded in
convincing him that the wisest course for him to pursue is to go to
some pleasant town or village within hailing distance of one of our
larger cities, and spend the summer quietly. I even suggested he should
make the personal acquaintance of some light employment, to help him
forget the gorgeous castle of cards which has just tumbled down about
his ears. In six words, I have sent him to Rivermouth.
Now, my dear uncle, I have wasted eight pages of paper and probably a
hundred dollars' worth of your time, if you do not see that I am
begging you to find a position for Lynde in the Nautilus Bank. After a
little practice he would make a skilful accountant, and the question of
salary is, as you see, of secondary importance. Manage to retain him at
Rivermouth if you possibly can. David Lynde has the strongest affection
for the lad, and if Vivien, whose name is Elizabeth, is not careful how
she drags Merlin around by the beard, he will reassert himself in some
unexpected manner. If he were to serve her as he is supposed to have
served old Sturdevant, his conduct would be charitably criticised. If
he lives a year he will be in a frame of mind to leave the bulk of his
fortune to Ned. THEY have not quarrelled, you understand; on the
contrary, Mr. Lynde was anxious to settle an allowance of five thousand
a year on Ned, but Ned would not accept it. "I want uncle David's
love," says Ned, "and I have it; the devil take his money."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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