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

during the meal, and cursed his lawyers and prated so of his confounded camp in the woods that I began to wish he would go back there and leave me in my peaceful city retreat.

After dining we went to a roof-garden vaudeville that was being much praised. There we found a good bill, an artificially cooled atmosphere, cold drinks, prompt service, and a gay, well-dressed audience. North was bored.

“If this isn’t comfortable enough for you on the hottest August night for five years,” I said, a little sarcastically, “you might think about the kids down in Delancey and Hester Streets lying out on the fire-escapes with their tongues hanging out, trying to get a breath of air that hasn’t been fried on both sides. The contrast might increase your enjoyment.”

“Don’t talk Socialism,” said North. “I gave five hundred dollars to the free ice fund on the first of May. I’m contrasting these stale, artificial, hollow, wearisome ‘amusements’ with the enjoyment a man can get in the woods. You should see the firs and pines do skirt-dances during a storm; and lie down flat and drink out of a mountain branch at the end of a day’s tramp after the deer. That’s the only way to spend a summer. Get out and live with nature.”

“I agree with you absolutely,” said I, with emphasis.

For one moment I had relaxed my vigilance, and had spoken my true sentiments. North looked at me long and curiously.

“Then why, in the name of Pan and Apollo,” he asked, “have you been singing this deceitful paean to summer in town?”

I suppose I looked my guilt.

“Ha,” said North, “I see. May I ask her name?”

“Annie Ashton,” said I, simply. “She played Nannette in Binkley & Bing’s production of ‘The Silver Cord.’ She is to have a better part next season.”

“Take me to see her,” said North.

Miss Ashton lived with her mother in a small hotel. They were out of the West, and had a little money that bridged the seasons. As press-agent of Binkley & Bing I had tried to keep her before the public. As Robert James Vandiver I had hoped to withdraw her; for if ever one was made to keep company with said Vandiver and smell the salt breeze on the south shore of Long Island and listen to the ducks quack in the watches of the night, it was the Ashton set forth above.

But she had a soul above ducks⁠—above nightingales; aye, even above birds of paradise. She was very beautiful, with quiet ways, and seemed genuine. She had both taste and talent for the stage, and she liked to stay at home and read and make caps for her mother. She was unvaryingly kind and friendly with Binkley & Bing’s press-agent. Since the theatre had closed she had allowed Mr. Vandiver to call in an unofficial role. I had often spoken to her of my friend, Spencer Grenville North; and so, as it was early, the first turn of the vaudeville being not yet over, we left to find a telephone.

Miss Ashton would be very glad to see Mr. Vandiver and Mr. North.

We found her fitting a new cap on her mother. I never saw her look more charming.

North made himself disagreeably entertaining. He was a good talker, and had a way with him. Besides, he had two, ten, or thirty millions, I’ve forgotten which. I incautiously admired the mother’s cap, whereupon she brought out her store of a dozen or two, and I took a course in edgings and frills. Even though Annie’s fingers had pinked, or ruched, or hemmed, or whatever you do to ’em, they palled upon me. And I could hear North drivelling to Annie about his odious Adirondack camp.

Two days after that I saw North in his motorcar with Miss Ashton and her mother. On the next afternoon he dropped in on me.

“Bobby,” said he, “this old burg isn’t such a bad proposition in the summertime, after all. Since I’ve keen knocking around it looks better to me. There are some first-rate musical comedies and light operas on the roofs and in the outdoor gardens. And if you hunt up the right places and stick to soft drinks, you can keep about as cool here as you can in the country. Hang it! when you come to think of it, there’s nothing much to the country, anyhow. You get tired and sunburned and lonesome, and you have to eat any old thing that the cook dishes up to you.”

“It makes a difference, doesn’t it?” said I.

“It certainly does. Now, I found some whitebait yesterday, at Maurice’s, with a new sauce that beats anything in the trout line I ever tasted.”

“It makes a difference, doesn’t it?” I said.

“Immense. The sauce is the main thing with whitebait.”

“It makes a difference, doesn’t it?” I asked, looking him straight in the eye. He understood.

“Look here, Bob,” he said, “I was going to tell you. I couldn’t help it. I’ll play fair with you, but I’m going in to win. She is the ‘one particular’ for me.”

“All right,” said I. “It’s a fair field. There are no rights for you to encroach upon.”

On Thursday afternoon Miss Ashton invited North and myself to have tea in her apartment. He was devoted, and she was more charming than usual. By avoiding the subject of caps I managed to get a word or two into and out of the talk. Miss Ashton asked me in a make-conversational tone something about the next season’s tour.

“Oh,” said I, “I don’t know about that. I’m not going to be with Binkley & Bing next season.”

“Why, I thought,” said she, “that they were going to put the Number One road company under your charge. I thought you told me so.”

“They were,” said I, “but they won’t. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to the south shore of Long Island and buy a small cottage I know there on the edge of the bay. And I’ll buy a catboat and a rowboat and a