The Spread Eagle and Other StoriesMorris, Gouverneur
General
The Spread Eagle and Other Stories
Morris, Gouverneur
Fiction; Short stories
Somehow, Mr. Holiday had overlooked the other drawing-room (B) in Car 5.
Now he came suddenly upon it, and peered in, for the door was ajar. But
he drew back with a sharp jerk as if he had seen a rattlesnake. All the
kindness went out of the old gentleman's face, and between anger and
hatred he turned white.
"Jolyff!" he muttered. And, all the elasticity gone from his gait, he
stumbled back to his own car, revolving and muttering unchristian
thoughts. For he and Jolyff had been meeting all their lives, it seemed,
in court and out; sometimes with the right on one side, sometimes on the
other. Each had cost the other a thousand wicked threats and a mint
of money.
Mr. Holiday's wanderings through the train had aroused all the kindlier
feelings in his nature. He was going home to his wife and family:
expensive and foolish as it seemed, he had the trunk full of toys for
the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren, and he was glad of it. He
had put things right for two prepossessing young people who had made a
wrong start; he had been gallant to an actress; he had determined to
help the clergyman out with his repair fund; to find work for a convict,
and to see to it that three children should have a pleasant visit with
an uncle who was really crotchety, disagreeable, and mean.
But now he did not care about pleasant things any more. He could think
of nothing but Jolyff; of nothing but old sores that rankled; of great
deals that had gone wrong, through his enemy. And in that spirit he
picked at his Christmas Eve dinner, and went to bed.
It seemed to Mr. Holiday every time he woke, which was often, that the
train had just started to move, after standing still for a long time,
and that the porter had never before allowed his car to grow so cold. He
turned the current into the reading light at the head of his bed and
consulted his watch.
Two o'clock. He got to wondering at exactly what hour all those hundreds
of years ago Christ had been born. Had it been as cold as this in the
old barn? Whew!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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