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Updated: May 24, 2025
The tired brain could not cope with the problem, and again the man slept, to awaken at sunrise with ravenous hunger and thirst, and a memory of what seemed to be horrible dreams, vague recollections of painful experiences, torturing labor with aching muscles and blistered hands; harsh words and ridicule from strong, bearded men; and running through and between, the shadowy figures of blue-coated, brass-buttoned men, continually ordering him on, and threatening arrest.
Mary, who was no less conventional, and no more intelligent, yet led a larger life and held more tolerant views. There was good in the new order too. The telephone clicked, and Archer, turning from the photographs, unhooked the transmitter at his elbow. How far they were from the days when the legs of the brass-buttoned messenger boy had been New York's only means of quick communication!
Yonder Greenwich pensioner, too, in his costume of three-cornered hat, and old-fashioned, brass-buttoned blue coat with ample skirts, which makes him look like a contemporary of Admiral Benbow, that tough old mariner may hear a word or two which will go nearer his heart than anything that the chaplain of the Hospital can be expected to deliver.
This was the darkest hour Hugh had ever known. The strain on his nerves, coupled with the anxiety of the previous weeks, was more than he could bear, and when, with the assistance of two men armed with authority, he searched the vessel for any trace of Dexie's presence, and found none, his brain seemed to collapse, and the brass-buttoned officers carried him back in their boat to Halifax in a state of unconsciousness.
The passengers incessantly mounted by the canvas-draped galleries leading, fore and aft, into the ship. Bareheaded, blue-jacketed, brass-buttoned stewards dodged skillfully in and out among them with their hand-bags, holdalls, hat-boxes, and state-room trunks, and ran before them into the different depths and heights where they hid these burdens, and then ran back for more.
They started with the music and whirled their partners round the room at the top of their speed, in the furnace temperature of Calcutta, without drawing rein for one second until the band stopped, when a dishevelled and utterly exhausted damsel collapsed limply into a chair, whilst a deliquescent brass-buttoned youth, with a sodden wisp of white linen and black silk round his neck to indicate the spot where he had once possessed a collar and tie, endeavoured to fan his partner into some semblance of coolness again.
Famous names were tossed about in undertones. Entered then the enemy of the proletariat. Kitty, being a New Yorker born, had had her weather eye roving. The brass-buttoned minion of the law was always around when a bit of innocent fun was going on. As the policeman reached the inner rim of the audience the last notes of Handel's "Largo" were fading on the ear.
Every afternoon Virginia drove with her father and her aunt to Camp Jackson. All the fashion and beauty of the city were there. The bands played, the black coachmen flecked the backs of their shining horses, and walking in the avenues or seated under the trees were natty young gentlemen in white trousers and brass-buttoned jackets. All was not soldier fare at the regimental messes.
Should you ever wander of a Sunday morning within sound of the cracked bell that calls a few habit-bound, old-fashioned folk to worship within those damp-stained walls, and drop into talk with the old men who on such days sometimes sit, each in his brass-buttoned long brown coat, upon the low stone coping underneath those broken railings, you might hear this tale from them, as I did, more years ago than I care to recollect.
A tall, blue-clad, brass-buttoned figure rounded the corner, and Shultz raised the alarm. "Cheese it, the cop!" They broke for cover, each in the direction of home and parental protection, while the guardian of the peace stood and laughed at the fleeing figures. Once well down the street, John pulled up, panting, and rubbed his nose. That kid had certainly hit it.
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