|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
rushed upon him, pressed his head back to the ground, and sat upon it. "Hurrah!" he cried, waving his hat above his head. "Get out, Buller; he is all right now!" Presently Mr. Buller approached, very much shaken up. "All right?" he said. "I don't call a horse flat in a road with a man on his head all right; but hold him down till we get him loose from my boat. That is the thing to do. William, cast him loose from the boat before you let him up! What will he do when he gets up?" "Oh. he'll be quiet enough when he gets up," said Podington. "But if you've got a knife you can cut his traces---I mean that rope--but no, you needn't. Here comes the boy. We'll settle this business in very short order now." When the horse was on his feet, and all connection between the animal and the boat had been severed, Mr. Podington looked at his friend. "Thomas," said he, "you seem to have had a hard time of it. You have lost your hat and you look as if you had been in a wrestling-match." "I have," replied the other; "I wrestled with that tiller and I wonder it didn't throw me out." Now approached the boy. "Shall I hitch him on again, sir?" said he. "He's quiet enough now." "No," cried Mr. Buller; "I want no more sailing after a horse, and, besides, we can't go on the lake with that boat; she has been battered about so much that she must have opened a dozen seams. The best thing we can do is to walk home." Mr. Podington agreed with his friend that walking home was the best thing they could do. The boat was examined and found to be leaking, but not very badly, and when her mast had been unshipped and everything had been made tight and right on board, she was pulled out of the way of tow-lines and boats, and made fast until she could be sent for from the town. Mr. Buller and Mr. Podington walked back toward the town. They had not gone very far when they met a party of boys, who, upon seeing them, burst into unseemly laughter. "Mister," cried one of them, "you needn't be afraid of tumbling into the canal. Why don't you take off your life-preserver and let that other man put it on his head?" The two friends looked at each other and could not help joining in the laughter of the boys. "By George! I forgot all about this," said Podington, as he unfastened the cork jacket. "It does look a little super-timid to wear a life-preserver just because one happens to be walking by the side of a canal." Mr. Buller tied a handkerchief on his head, and Mr. Podington rolled up his life-preserver and carried it under his arm. Thus they reached the town, where Buller bought a hat, Podington dispensed with his bundle, and arrangements were made to bring back the boat. "Runaway in a sailboat!" exclaimed one of the canal boatmen when he had heard about the accident. "Upon my word! That beats anything that could happen to a man!" "No, it doesn't," replied Mr. Buller, quietly. "I have gone to the bottom in a foundered road-wagon." The man looked at him fixedly. "Was you ever struck in the mud in a balloon?" he asked. "Not yet," replied Mr. Buller. It required ten days to put Mr. Buller's sailboat into proper condition, and for ten days Mr. Podington stayed with his friend, and enjoyed his visit very much. They strolled on the beach, they took long walks in the back country, they fished from the end of a pier, they smoked, they talked, and were happy and content. "Thomas," said Mr. Podington, on the last evening of his stay, "I have enjoyed myself very much since I have been down here, and now, Thomas, if I were to come down again next summer, would you mind--would you mind, not----" "I would not mind it a bit," replied Buller, promptly. "I'll never so much as mention it; so you can come along without a thought of it. And since you have alluded to the subject, William," he continued, "I'd like very much to come and see you again; you know my visit was a very short one this year. That is a beautiful country you live in. Such a variety of scenery, such an opportunity for walks and rambles! But, William, if you could only make up your mind not to----" "Oh, that is all right!" exclaimed Podington. "I do not need to make up my mind. You come to my house and you will never so much as hear of it. Here's my hand upon it!" "And here's mine!" said Mr. Buller. And they shook hands over a new compact. Colonel Starbottle For The Plaintiff By Bret Harte (1839-1902) [From Harper's Magazine, March, 1901. Republished in the volume, Openings in the Old Trail (1902), by Bret Harte; copyright, 1902, by Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers of Bret Harte's complete works; reprinted by their permission.] It had been a day of triumph for Colonel Starbottle. First, for his personality, as it would have been difficult to separate the Colonel's achievements from his individuality; second, for his oratorical abilities as a sympathetic pleader; and third, for his functions as the leading counsel for the Eureka Ditch Company versus the State of California. On his strictly legal performances in this issue I prefer not to speak; there were those who denied them, although the jury had accepted them in the face of the ruling of the half-amused, half-cynical Judge himself. For an hour they had laughed with the Colonel, wept with him, been stirred to personal indignation or patriotic exaltation by his passionate and lofty periods--what else could they do than give him their verdict? If it was alleged by some that the American eagle, Thomas Jefferson, and the Resolutions of '98 had nothing whatever to do with the contest of a ditch company over a doubtfully worded legislative document; that wholesale abuse of the State Attorney and his political motives had not the slightest connection with the legal question raised--it was, nevertheless, generally accepted that the losing party would have been only too glad to have the Colonel on their side. And Colonel Starbottle knew this, as, perspiring, florid, and panting, he rebuttoned the lower buttons of his blue frock-coat, which had become loosed in an oratorical spasm, and readjusted his old-fashioned, spotless shirt frill above it as he strutted from the court- room amidst the hand-shakings and acclamations of his friends. And here an unprecedented thing occurred. The Colonel absolutely declined spirituous refreshment at the neighboring Palmetto Saloon, and declared his intention of proceeding directly to his office in the adjoining square. Nevertheless the Colonel quitted the building alone, and apparently unarmed except for his faithful gold-headed stick, which hung as usual from his forearm. The crowd gazed after him with undisguised admiration of this new evidence of his pluck. It was remembered also that a mysterious note had been handed to him at the conclusion of his speech--evidently a challenge from the State Attorney. It was quite plain that the Colonel--a practised duellist--was hastening home to answer it. But herein they were wrong. The note was in a female hand, and simply requested the Colonel to accord an interview with the writer at the Colonel's office as soon as he left the court. But it was an engagement that the Colonel--as devoted to the fair sex as he was to the "code"--was no less prompt in accepting. He flicked away the dust from his spotless white trousers and varnished boots with his handkerchief, and settled his black cravat under his Byron collar as he neared his office. He was surprised, however, on opening the door of his private office to find his visitor already there; he was still more startled to find her somewhat past middle age and plainly attired. But the Colonel was [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
Podobne
|