United States or France ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Before they parted, Alan made a proposal that was startling in the extreme. He would be at Collette's that night about twelve, he said. Why should not John come there and get the money? To go to Collette's was to see life indeed; it was wrong; it was against the laws; it partook, in a very dingy manner, of adventure.
Did you hear what happened to Collette at our place? Collette was the prettiest girl of our village, and a good girl, but a thought too vain. Perhaps it is too much to expect a woman not to be vain when she is pretty, but all are not. Collette's skin was like lilies and roses. When the dragoons were let loose on us they burnt her father's furniture, and beat him within an inch of his life.
I have brought my bag with my togs." "All right, sir, I am ready at once; the place is clear now behind. I have just been making it tidy, for we had a little ratting last night, one of my dogs against Sir James Collette's, fifty rats each; my dog beat him by three quarters of a minute." "You will never see me here at one of those businesses.
Were it known, it was the sort of exploit that disconsidered a young man for good with the more serious classes, but gave him a standing with the riotous. And yet Collette's was not a hell; it could not come, without vaulting hyperbole, under the description of a gilded saloon; and if it was a sin to go there, the sin was merely local and municipal.
And the dreadful thing is this: we were all taken up last night, and we have to pay Collette's fine among the six, or we'll be had up for evidence shebeening it is. They made me swear to tell you; but for my part," he cried, bursting into tears, "I just wish that I was dead!" And he fell on his knees before a chair and hid his face.
Collette's foul walls and spotted table-linen, everything even down to Collette's villainous casters, seemed like objects in a nightmare.
Collette was simply an unlicensed publican, who gave suppers after eleven at night, the Edinburgh hour of closing. If you belonged to a club, you could get a much better supper at the same hour, and lose not a jot in public esteem. But if you lacked that qualification, and were an-hungered, or inclined towards conviviality at unlawful hours, Collette's was your only port.
Over the crown of the Calton Hill, to his left, lay the way to Collette's, where Alan would soon be looking for his arrival, and where he would now have no more consented to go than he would have wilfully wallowed in a bog; the touch of the girl's hand on his sleeve, and the kindly light in his father's eyes, both loudly forbidding.
Word Of The Day