Tin-types taken in the streets of New York : $b a series of stories and sketches portraying many singular phases of metropolitan lifeQuigg, Lemuel Ely
General
Tin-types taken in the streets of New York : $b a series of stories and sketches portraying many singular phases of metropolitan life
Quigg, Lemuel Ely
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Who did get the votes of the association I'm sure I can't say. All I
know is that the Republican candidate was elected, and a Central Office
detective who haunts the Forty-second Street depot reported at
Headquarters on Election Day night that he had seen Dennie McCafferty,
wearing evening dress and a single glass in his left eye, and Tozie
Monks, The Croak, dressed as Dennie's valet, board the six o'clock train
for Chicago and the West.
X.
MR. MADDLEDOCK.
Mr. Maddledock did not like to wait, and, least of all, for dinner.
Wobbles knew that, and when he heard the soft gong of the clock in the
lower hall beat seven times, and reflected that while four guests had
been bidden to dinner only three had yet come, Wobbles was agitated.
Mrs. Throcton, Mr. Maddledock's sister, and Miss Annie Throcton had
arrived and were just coming downstairs from the dressing-room. Mr.
Linden was in the parlor with Miss Maddledock, both looking as if all
they asked was to be let alone. Mr. Maddledock was in the library
walking up and down in a way that Wobbles could but look upon as
ominous. Again, and for the fifth time in two minutes, Wobbles made a
careful calculation upon his fingers, but to save his unhappy soul he
could not bring five persons to tally with six chairs. And in the mean
while, Mr. Maddledock's step in the library grew sharper in its sound
and quicker in its motion.
There was nothing vulgar about Mr. Maddledock. His tall, erect figure,
his gray eyes, his clearly cut, correct features, his low voice, his
utter want of passion, and his quiet, resolute habit of bending
everything and everybody as it suited him to bend them, told upon people
differently. Some said he was handsome and courtly, others insisted that
he was sinister-looking and cruel. Which were right I shall not
undertake to say. Whether it was a lion or a snake in him that
fascinated, it is certainly true that he impressed every one who knew
him. In some respects his influence was very singular. He seemed to
throw out a strange devitalizing force that acted as well upon inanimate
as upon animate things. The new buffet had not been in the dining-room
six months before it looked as ancient as the Louis XIV. pier-glass in
the upper hall. This subtle influence of Mr. Maddledock had wrought a
curious effect upon the whole house. It oxydized the frescoes on the
walls. It subdued the varied shades of color that streamed in from the
stained-glass windows. It gave a deeper richness to the velvet carpets
and mellowed the lace curtains that hung from the parlor casements into
a creamy tint.
[Illustration: "IN THE MORGUE," SAID MR. MADDLEDOCK, "WELL, THAT'S THE
BEST PLACE FOR HIM."]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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