Short Fiction - O. Henry (books recommended by bts .TXT) 📗

and filled with an unutterable longing to rest his eyes once more upon the scenes of his youth, he had come back to find a bustling modern city covering the site of his former home. He sought in vain for some familiar object, some old time sight that would recall memories of bygone days. All had changed. On the site where his father’s cottage had stood, a stately mansion reared its walls; the vacant lot where he had played when a boy, was covered with modern buildings. Magnificent lawns stretched on either hand, running back to palatial dwellings. Not one of the sights of his boyhood days was left.

Suddenly, with a glad cry, he rushed forward with renewed vigor. He saw before him, untouched by the hand of man and unchanged by time, an old familiar object around which he had played when a child. He reached out his arms and ran toward it with a deep sigh of satisfaction.

Later on they found him asleep, with a peaceful smile on his face, lying on the old garbage pile in the middle of the street, the sole relic of his boyhood’s recollections.

Getting at the Facts

It was late in the afternoon and the day staff was absent. The night editor had just come in, pulled off his coat, vest, collar, and necktie, rolled up his shirtsleeves and eased down his suspenders, and was getting ready for work.

Someone knocked timidly outside the door, and the night editor yelled, “Come in.”

A handsome young lady with entreating blue eyes and a Psyche knot entered with a rolled manuscript in her hand.

The night editor took it silently and unrolled it. It was a poem and he read it half aloud with a convulsive jaw movement that resulted from his organs of speech being partially engaged with about a quarter of a plug of chewing tobacco. The poem ran thus:

A Requiem

The soft, sweet, solemn dawn stole through
The latticed room’s deep gloom;
He lay in pallid, pulseless peace,
Fulfilled his final doom.
Oh, breaking heart of mine⁠—oh, break!
Left lonely here to mourn;
My alter ego, mentor, friend
Thus from me rudely torn.
Within his chamber dead he lies,
And stilled is his sweet lyre;
How long he pored o’er midnight oil.
With grand poetic fire!
Till came the crash, when his bright light
Went out, and all was drear;
And my sad soul was left to wait
In grief and anguish here.

“When did this happen?” asked the night editor.

“I wrote it last night, sir,” said the young lady. “Is it good enough to print?”

“Last night! H’m. A little stale, but the other papers didn’t get it. Now, miss,” continued the night editor, smiling and throwing out his chest, “I’m going to teach you a lesson in the newspaper business. We can use this item, but it’s not in proper shape. Just take that chair, and I’ll rewrite it for you, showing you how to properly condense a news item in order to secure its insertion.”

The young lady seated herself and the night editor knitted his brows and read over the poem two or three times to get the main points. He then wrote a few lines upon a sheet of paper and said:

“Now, miss, here is the form in which your item will appear when we print it:

Fatal Accident

Last evening Mr. Alter Ego of this city was killed by the explosion of a kerosene lamp while at work in his room.

“Now, you see, miss, the item includes the main facts in the case, and⁠—”

“Sir!” said the young lady indignantly. “There is nothing of the kind intimated in the poem. The lines are imaginary and are intended to express the sorrow of a poet’s friend at his untimely demise.”

“Why, miss,” said the night editor, “it plainly refers to midnight oil, and a crash, and when the light blew up the gent was left for dead in the room.”

“You horrid thing,” said the young lady, “give me my manuscript. I will bring it back when the literary editor is in.”

“I’m sorry,” said the night editor as he handed her the roll. “We’re short on news tonight, and it would have made a nice little scoop. Don’t happen to know of any accidents in your ward: births, runaways, holdups, or breach of promise suits, do you?”

But the slamming of the door was the only answer from the fair poetess.

Too Wise

Here is a man in Houston who keeps quite abreast of the times. He reads the papers, has traveled extensively and is an excellent judge of human nature. He has a natural gift for detecting humbugs and fakirs, and it would be a smooth artist indeed who could impose upon him in any way.

Last night as he was going home, a shady looking man with his hat pulled over his eyes stepped out from a doorway and said:

“Say, gent, here’s a fine diamond ring I found in de gutter. I don’t want to get into no trouble wid it. Gimme a dollar and take it.”

The Houston man smiled as he looked at the flashy ring the man held toward him.

“A very good game, my man,” he said, “but the police are hot after you fellows. You had better select your rhinestone customers with better judgment. Good night.”

When the man got home he found his wife in tears.

“Oh, John,” she said. “I went shopping this afternoon and lost my solitaire diamond ring. Oh, what shall I⁠—”

John turned without a word and rushed back down the street, but the shady-looking man was not to be found.

His wife often wonders why he never scolded her for losing the ring.

Answers to Inquiries

Dear Editor: I want to ask a question in arithmetic. I am a school boy and am anxious to know the solution. If my pa, who keeps a grocery on Milam Street, sells four cans of tomatoes for twenty-five cents, and twenty-two pounds of sugar, and one can of extra evaporated apples and three cans of superior California plums, for only⁠—

There!