United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
This seemed to strike the older man as a very sensible way to take his
gallery, and he said, when they had reached the studio, that he would
like to see more of Mr. Carstairs and to look at his pictures. His
name, he said, was Cole. Carstairs smilingly asked him if he was any
relation to the railroad king, of whom the papers spoke as King Cole,
and was somewhat embarrassed when the old gentleman replied, gravely,
that he was that King Cole himself. Carstairs had a humorous desire to
imprison him in his studio and keep him for ransom. Some one held the
horse, and the two men went up to the sixth floor and into Carstairs's
studio, where they discovered pretty Mrs. Carstairs in the act of
sewing a new collar-band on one of her husband's old shirts. She went
on at this while the railroad king, who seemed a very simple, kindly
old gentleman, wandered around the studio and turned over the
pictures, but made no comment. It had been a very cold drive, and
Carstairs felt chilled, so he took the hot water his wife had for her
tea and some Scotch whiskey and a bit of lemon, and filled a glass
with it for his guest and for himself. Mrs. Carstairs rose and put
some sugar in King Cole's glass and stirred it for him, and tasted it
out of the spoon and coughed, which made the old gentleman laugh. Then
he lighted a cigar, and sat back in a big arm-chair and asked many
questions, until, before they knew it, the young people had told him a
great deal about themselves--almost everything except that they were
poor. He could never guess that, they thought, because the studio was
so handsomely furnished and in such a proper neighborhood. It was
late in the afternoon, and quite dark, when their guest departed,
without having made any comment on the paintings he had seen, and
certainly without expressing any desire to purchase one.
Mrs. Carstairs said, when her husband told her who their guest had
been, that they ought to have held a pistol to his head and made him
make out a few checks for them while they had him about. "Billionaires
don't drop in like that every day," said she. "I really don't think we
appreciated our opportunity."
They were very much surprised a few days later when the railroad king
rang at the door, and begged to be allowed to come in and get warm,
and to have another glass of hot Scotch. He did this very often, and
they got to like him very much. He said he did not care for his club,
and his room at home was too strongly suggestive of the shop, on
account of the big things he had thought over there, but that their
studio was so bright and warm; and they reminded him, he said, of the
days when he was first married, before he was rich. They tried to
imagine what he was like when he was first married, and failed
utterly. Mrs. Carstairs was quite sure he was not at all like her
husband.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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