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"Are you aware I could have you severely punished for concealing the thing?" "Fire away. I'll take my chance. But I would advise you not to allow the thing come into court. Words might be spoken that would hurt! I know nothing myself, but there is one that could and would speak. Better let sleeping dogs lie." "Oh, damn it! I don't want to wake 'em! Most old stories are best forgotten.
Partridge, that woman with wonderful power over the forgotten, neglected portion of the world, arrested all his bewildering thoughts and centered them on the strange stories she had to tell. Did you ever hear her tell that remarkable story of her first attempt at controlling that remarkable class which came under her care, many years ago, in St. Louis?
Local tradition had it that the place held the ghosts of those who had died in agony within its noisome dungeons; but she had always been far too matter-of-fact to accept stories of the supernatural. Yet at that moment her ears did not deceive her. That pile of grim, gaunt ruins was a House of Whispers! Again she listened, never moving a muscle.
"Where are you going?" she cried with misgiving. "To tell the other boys." "Don't go Peter," she entreated, "I know such lots of stories." Those were her precise words, so there can be no denying that it was she who first tempted him. He came back, and there was a greedy look in his eyes now which ought to have alarmed her, but did not.
The training Daudet required for his novels he got from the sketches and short stories that occupied him during the late sixties and early seventies. Here again little in the way of comment need be given, and that little can express the general verdict that the art displayed in these miniature productions is not far short of perfect.
Of course, there are a dozen other of his stories which would put the average writer's best work to shame, all with the strange Stevenson glamour upon them, of which I may discourse later, but only to those two would I be disposed to admit that complete excellence which would pass them into such a team as this. And who else?
Now I leave out of the question, all the influences of fright, surprise, etc., also all the humbug stories of novel writers and romancers in private life, and yet there is a remainder that I cannot cast out. One or two anecdotes, and then I come to my principal proof.
Carvings on the walls brought over the mountains, when to bring them by panels was a two-months' journey. There's queer stories hang about these old Pennsylvania homesteads." "Bradford? The Gurneys are a new family here, then?" "Came here but a few years back, from a country farther up the mountains. They're different from us." "How, different?" with a keen, surprised glance.
"Well," said the sergeant, in reply to my remarks on this subject, "since you have mentioned the matter yourself, Lorimer, I am glad to hear you say so that is, to hear you say that you are innocent of that rascally business; for, putting your assertions, so solemnly made, to what my wife says for she has some queer stories of that fellow Digby I have no doubt now of your innocence."
He found her extraordinarily bright and vivacious, and was delighted at the change, for he had been troubled the last time he had seen her a few months before, at her silence and listlessness; but her face was radiant now, as she threw herself into his arms at the door, and told him that they were all to go to supper that night at the Hall; and that Hubert had been keeping his best stories on purpose for his return.
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