United States or Botswana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I saw Follet gaining on him, and then saw no more of them; for my feet acting on some inspiration of their own which never had time to reach my brain, took a short cut to the water front. I raced past French Eva's empty house, pounding my way through the gentle heat of May, to Stires's establishment. I hoped to cut them off.
The way they all dragged me in and then cursed me for being there! The Chinaman stood with his hands folded in his wicked sleeves, his eyes on the ground. In the semi-gloom of Stires's warehouse, his face looked like a mouldy orange. He was yellower even than his race permitted outside and in. "If I can't be of any service to you or Miss Eva, I should be only too glad to go home," I retorted.
"There's no telling. She's a real lady." And the discouraged Stires beat, with his spanner, a refrain to his involuntary epigram. "She can take care of herself, can't she?" I had watched her deal with a drunken Solomon Islander, and did not see how Schneider could be a match for her. "I don't know." Stires's lazy drawl challenged the sunset. "Anything I can do?" I asked as I rose.
I was not speaking the strictest truth, but I saw no reason to pour out Madame Maür's revelations just then upon Stires's heated soul. Nor would I pursue the subject of Follet. Stires sank down on something that had once been an office-chair. Thence he glowered at me. I had no mind to endure his misdirected anger, and I turned to go.
But they won't stand for murder in open daylight even your friends." We were very near Stires's place by this time. There was no sign of any one in the yard; it was inhabited solely by the familiar rusty monsters of Stires's trade. As we drew up alongside, I looked through the window.
Six hours before, I had not been calm; but now I looked back at that fever with contempt. "She's been to Stires's," he went on; and I could see the words hurt him. "Well, then, ask him." "He was asleep. She left her beloved gramophone there. He found it when he waked." "Her gramophone?" I ejaculated. "Where is Stires?" "Looking for her and hoping he won't find her, curse him!"
I had nothing to do with this particular Yankee in the way of business, but I lingered occasionally by his door in the cool of the afternoon, just to feed my eyes on his brawn and my ears on his homely and pleasant nasality. Stires's eyes were that disconcerting gray-blue which seems to prevail among men who have lived much in the desert or on the open sea.
I can't give you the check back because I haven't it to give; and if I had, I wouldn't. That would be allowing a fool to make a fool of me. I'm sorry, very, but I can't do anything for you." "Oh, Mr. Cowperwood!" Tears were in Stires's eyes. "He'll discharge me! He'll forfeit my sureties. I'll be turned out into the street. I have only a little property of my own outside of my salary!"
Word Of The Day