Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 22, 2025
Bunsey had started out in life with high ideals, a resolution to lead the purely literary existence and to supply the market with a variety of choice, didactic essays along the line of high thinking; but the demand did not come up to the supply, and presently he abandoned his original lofty intention in favor of a sort of dubious romance.
It is true that I, like many others, was guilty of the usual folly in my youth, and perhaps that gave me the wisdom to wait for my second venture until precisely the fight party came along. Matrimony, Bunsey, is an exact science.
It was a happy thought that suggested to me a way out of the difficulty, which was neither more nor less than that we should all go to the city together. I sprang the proposition at a family conference. Phyllis was delighted. "There is always so much to be seen in the city," she cried, "and I shall meet Mr. Bunsey. It has been one of the dreams of my life to know a real literary man."
I noticed that my dogs barked a great deal, that the neighbors had become most tiresome, and that Bunsey was an unmitigated nuisance. Even the cuisine, which had been my pride and boast, grew at times unbearable, and I had not been home a fortnight before I astonished Prudence by positively assuring her that the dinner she had set before me was not worth any sane man's serious attention.
"Oh, don't stop there, I beg," I said sarcastically; "if you are thinking of using these materials for one of your popular novels, be sure to throw in a few duels, several heartrending catastrophes, and other incidents of what you call 'action, appropriately expressed in bad English." Bunsey was imperturbable.
While I was talking Bunsey had reached over, taken a sheet of paper and was busily writing. He looked up carelessly. "Your story interests me, and is such good material that I thought I would make a few notes.
With this parting shot I strode out of the library, when, remembering the sacredness of my revelation, I turned back. "Of course you will understand, Bunsey, that however flippantly you may choose to regard what I have said to you, you will have the decency to keep the subject-matter to yourself. I do not ask your congratulations or your approval, but I demand your secrecy."
Having discharged my duty to my good servants, I felt that my obligations, so far as the relation with Phyllis was concerned, were at an end, and the morning wore away without further misgivings of disloyalty. In the afternoon Bunsey came over for his daily smoke, and as we sat together in the library, and I noticed the entire absence of suspicion in his manner, my heart smote me.
And eagerly and successfully I exerted myself to convince the doubting ones in general, and Bunsey in particular, how absurd were their suspicions, and how apparent it was that Phyllis and I had been purposely created for each other.
I blew out a ring of smoke, and then I began with the utmost seriousness: "Bunsey, how do you like the ladies?" He shifted his position, tipped the ashes from his cigar, and replied tranquilly: "Oh, I dare say I shall in time." The answer vexed me. Bunsey was a bachelor, and should have been therefore the more impressionable.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking