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The driver lay extended on the top of it, asleep, the syce squatted beneath the horse's nose, and fed it perfunctorily with hay from a bundle tied under the vehicle behind. A fringe of palms and ferns in pots ran between the pillars, and orchids hung from above, shutting out the garden where heavy scents stood in the sun, and mynas chattered on the drive.
The emphasis which directs his thinking bears most heavily upon the mechanics of life only perfunctorily upon the ability of the men who are to use them. Even an able reformer like Mr. Frederic C. Howe does not escape entirely. A recent book is devoted to a glowing eulogy of "Wisconsin, an Experiment in Democracy." In a concluding chapter Mr. Howe states the philosophy of the experiment.
Hawker encamped in front of some fields of vivid yellow stubble on which trees made olive shadows, and which was overhung by a china-blue sky and sundry little white clouds. He fiddled away perfunctorily at it. A spectator would have believed, probably, that he was sketching the pines on the hill where shone the red porches of Hemlock Inn.
The Governor had introduced her as Julia, carelessly, as though of course Archie knew the rest of it. The whole business was as utterly unreal as anything could be. The Governor asked perfunctorily about her drive into town, and whether it had been hot in the country.
But then came the thought that had often visited me in the past months, as I sat in the dingy courtroom, and listened perfunctorily to the legal wrangle, the abuse and defense, the long-drawn testimony of witnesses, the comment of the precise and genial judge, and contemplated idly the jaded, uncomfortable jury, the covert whispering of Assistant District Attorneys and postoffice inspectors, the dangling maps and the piles of documents when I had asked myself, "Is all this real, or are they transient symbols importing a concealed significance?"
"No champagne for me, Harry," protested Laramie. "What are you going to have?" asked the mild-voiced bartender, perfunctorily. Laramie tilted his hat brim: "Why," he answered, after everybody had contributed advice, "if I've got to take something on this little boy, a little whisky, I suppose, Luke." "No poison served here tonight, Jim," growled Sawdy, throwing his bloodshot eyes on Laramie.
She had in some marvelous way succeeded in rerobing herself and was now arrayed in an exquisite tea gown which made Red's eyes light up with admiration. Inwardly exulting at the success of her experiment, she sat down close beside him on the divan and rapidly opened the letters. At her insistence he took them, though very reluctantly, and perfunctorily scanned their contents.
"Can they hear the balls?" said Kitty, eagerly, with a gesture towards the library. Mary Lyster, who had been perfunctorily looking at a book, laid it down. "It would certainly greatly distress Lady Grosville," she said, in a voice studiously soft, but on that account perhaps all the more significant. Kitty glanced at Mary, and Ashe saw the sudden red in her cheek.
"Do you remember a fortnight ago I told you some one, some Belgian had written a beautiful poem and sent it to me for one of our newspapers? I showed it to you at the time and you said you said 'it was well enough, but it did not seem to have much point." Vivie did remember having glanced very perfunctorily at some effusion in typewriting which had seemed unobjectionable piffle.
Carpenter emerged from the region of the stable and began to water some flower-beds in the vicinity of her seat. 'Terrible dry month we've had, ma'am, he murmured in his quiet pastoral voice, waving the can to and fro. She agreed perfunctorily.
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