United States or Democratic Republic of the Congo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Impossible! It is only half past seven." "But my watch, and the watches of the staff" "Are regulated by my kitchen clock, that has been in my family for years. Enough! it is only half past seven." The officer retired; the bootblack had finished one boot. Another officer appeared. "Instead of attacking the enemy, general, we are attacked ourselves. Our pickets are already driven in."
There were bequests to his lawyer, his doctor and his secretary, besides substantial gifts to persons who could not by any chance have expected anything from this grim old man,—such as the friendly doorman at his favourite club, and the man who had been delivering newspapers to him for a score of years or more, and the old negro bootblack who had attended him at the Brevoort in the days before the Italian monopoly set in, and the two working-girls who supported the invalid widow of a man who had gone to prison and died there after having robbed the Thorpe estate of a great many thousands of dollars while acting as a confidential and trusted agent.
A bootblack who polishes his shoes as well as he can, not merely because he is to be paid for it, though too he has a right to his pay, but because that is his work, his means of expression, even he works in the spirit of an artist. Extraordinary skill is often developed by those who are quite outside the pale of art.
He thought of his own simple, plain life as compared with the neurasthenic existence of the men on the Stock Exchange, who were now compelled to look on in complete apathy and let things go as they were. The rich man, whom in the bottom of his heart he had often envied, was now poorer than the Italian bootblack standing beside him.
The bootblack drew a tin putty-blower from his pocket, took unerring aim, and nailed in a single shot the minute hand to the dial. Going on with his blacking, yet stopping ever and anon to glance over the general's plan of campaign, spread on the table before him, he was at last interrupted by the entrance of an officer. "Everything is ready for the attack, general. It is now eight o'clock"
Later, when twilight deepened, when the moon had changed from silver to gold, the orators gave place to a singer. He had been a bootblack in America. Now he had become a bard. His plaintive minor chant evoked, one knew not how, the flavour of that age-long history of oppression and wrong these were now determined to avenge.
I was born Blacklock, and christened Matthew; and my hair's being very black and growing so that a lock of it often falls down the middle of my forehead is a coincidence. The malicious and insinuating story that I used to go under another name arose, no doubt, from my having been a bootblack in my early days, and having let my customers shorten my name into Matt Black.
"I think it means that he wouldn't cheat any one," he exclaimed; "or hit a boy who was under his size, and that he blacks people's boots very well and makes them shine as much as he can. He's a perfessional bootblack." "And he's one of your acquaintances, is he?" said the Earl. "He is an old friend of mine," replied his grandson. "Not quite as old as Mr. Hobbs, but quite old.
They noticed the sign of an apartment to let on the north side, and as soon as the little bootblack could be bought off they went over to look at it. The janitor met them at the door and examined them. Then he said, as if still in doubt, "It has ten rooms, and the rent is twenty-eight hundred dollars."
He masked his eagerness as he thrust a quarter forward. "The drink's on me then. Let me have a cigar." Whitey also took a cigar, indicating friendliwise the better box. "Who was it asked you for the paper money?" Steve went on. "He might have one he doesn't need." "It was Stumpy Collins. The bootblack across the street." "I'll look him up; yesterday he had them, you say?"
Word Of The Day