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Several years ago my old army letters, which had been so carefully kept and cherished for all these many years, passed from the keeping of those to whom they had been addressed, back into the possession of him who penned them, and now, after the lapse of fifty-four years, one of these old letters, written to my father, shall re-tell the story of this Christmas dinner.
Madden, the treasurer of a large shoe company, when they met on the marble tiles of the hall in their Boston club. "All right. Why?" "Well," replied Madden, conciliatingly, "you seem kind of preoccupied, that's all. I didn't know but what the fifty-four hour bill the legislature's just put through might be worrying you." "We'll handle that situation when the time comes," said Ditmar.
They say I exercise a depressing influence on their business by setting a bad example to other people; and one of 'em, over in Constantinople, he said a man who'd defrauded about fifty-four generations of undertakers ought to be ashamed to show his face in civilized society. But bless you, sonny, I don't mind them. Business, you know, is business.
Vienna was delivered; the flood of Ottomans, that had beaten against its walls one hundred fifty-four years previously, had returned more furiously, more menacing still, against that dignified protectress of European civilization, but this time it had been repelled never to return. Thus vanished the insane hopes of the Grand Vizier.
On asking him about fishing, etc., he told me, and showed me by the lodge books, that the record for this river was fifty-four salmon in one day to one rod, all caught by the fly! The fortunate fisherman's name? Mr Naylor! the very man I had travelled with to New Zealand!
The leverage was highly disadvantageous that way. Still, straining with the last ounce of his strength, he was just able to do it. Pulling down was not so hard. It took fifty-four motions, up and down, before the tough metal cracked and one chain trailed free.
How had he found the means, in the midst of struggles and hardships, to refine himself so that the primitive broker and speculator were almost unrecognizable in the baron of fifty-four, decorated with several orders, installed in a magnificent palace, the father of a charming daughter, and himself an agreeable conversationalist, a courteous gentleman, an ardent sportsman?
At four in the morning, we made sail to the N.E. with a light breeze at S.S.W. which at eight veered to the westward, and soon after died away; at this time we were within three or four miles of the land, and had fifty-four fathom, with a large swell from the W.S.W. rolling obliquely upon the shore, which made me fear that I should be obliged to anchor; but by the help of a light air now and then from the S.W. I was able to keep the ship from driving.
In no more than a few minutes he could be seen as rather a gallant figure of the border cavalier a border just then more martial than it had been before '46 and the days of "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight."
I had realized the meaning of it in the beautiful concert of affection between my father and mother, who lived to celebrate their golden wedding. My wife and I have enjoyed now the like conjugal felicity fifty-four counted to include two years of betrothal, fifty-six years.
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