United States or Syria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Seems to be fairly well acquainted with you, though, Ernie boy," says I. As for Ernie, he just stands there starin' bug-eyed and gaspy, as if he didn't know what to do. Course, I couldn't tell why. I knew he always had acted like a poor prune when he was kidded by the flossy key pounders in the office, but almost any nut could see this was an entirely different case.
Necessity's one thing and pleasure's another, as the boy said about takin' his ma's spring bitters. "So we headed for the Stock Exchange. We got our gallery tickets at the bank where the Golconda folks kept money, and in a little while we was leanin' over a kind of marble bulwarks and starin' down at a gang of men smokin' and foolin' and carryin' on.
But I let the boys roar. I know what I was when a boy myself. I've got devil in me never you fear but it's all on the side of the law. Now, let's off, for the gentlemen are starin' at you, which won't hurt ye, ye know, but makes me jealous."
"An' them no bigger than the top of a tomato can!" Mrs. Byrne was muttering. Mrs. Cregan ate, and the food helped, to stop her tears. It was the strong coffee, at last, that brought her back her voice. "If it'd b'en him, he'd 'a' gone an' got drunk," she said, wiping her cheeks with her napkin. "The men have the best of it. Us women have to take it all starin' sober."
'Come quick, says he, the sweat standin' thick on him; and he ran me up the bank for it was at the beginnin' of the Glen where the sides were low and there we stood pantin' and starin' flat at each other.
But the ways I'd loved and walked, avick, Were no more home to me, Wid their sthreets and turns av starin' brick, And no ould face to see! And the ould glad ways I'd helt in mind, Loike the home av Moira Bawn, And the ould green turns I'd dreamt to find, They all were lost and gone!
I used ter grin at Chook, but I was the fool. I had everythin' that I could see that was worth 'avin', an' somehow I wasn't satisfied. I never could see much in this life. I often wondered what it was all about. But now I understand. What's this for," and he indicated the dreamy peaceful scene with a sweep of his hand, "if it only leaves yer starin' and wonderin'? I know now.
The hard lines around her mouth softens, the narrowed eyes widen and light up, and her stiff under jaw gets trembly. A tear or so trickles foolish down the side of her nose; but she don't pay any attention. She's just starin' at Westy. "You you wanted me to know first, did you?" says she, with a break in her shrill, cackly voice. "Me?" "I thought it only right," says Westy.
Scudder thought he'd ought to see a doctor, but he wouldn't, so Nate plastered him up best he could, got him into the big chair in the front room, and went huntin' Augustus. Him and Olivia was still camped in the sand bank. Gus's right arm had got tired by this time, I cal'late, but he had a new hitch with his left. Likewise they was still starin' into each other's specs.
An' while I was figgerin' on that till the sweat come out on my forehead, I turned agin, an' there agin was the bear's face starin' round the rock not more'n a foot away. "You'll understand how my nerves was on the jumps, when I tell you, boys, that I was scared an' startled all over again, like the first time I'd seen it.