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Updated: May 11, 2025
As the wheel of the hansom ground against the kerbstone in front of the telegraph office, the figure of George Sheldon vanished in a little court to the left of that establishment. Instead of pursuing this receding figure, Philip Sheldon walked straight into the office. It was empty.
Kerbstone was found to be a defaulter to the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars; the property was gone, undermined like a snow-bank in spring. The largest owner was Bullion. He was overreached by his own shrewdness; and the hitherto unlucky "bulls," who had had small cause to laugh, thought that it was "sport to see the engineer Hoist with his own petard,"
If the traveller in India depended upon the former, he would pass many a night with the kerbstone for his pillow, if he had not courage to claim the latter which, be it remembered, he is certain to receive abundantly at the hands of the Burra Sahib.
In Middletown two very pretty girls, with ribbons of red, white, and blue floating from their hair, and small Union flags in their hands, rushed out of a house as we passed, came to the kerbstone, and with much laughter waved their flags defiantly in the face of the general.
At the cross-roads I came on a lantern standing upon the ground, and by it drooped the nose of a benighted horse; the spurt of a match lit the face of its owner. Up the hill, the torch held low against the kerbstone, the sudden looming of a black giant made me start back as I nearly ran my head into a telegraph-post....
Along the kerbstone a few yards in front were ranged the children of the district, row upon row, uncombed, in rags, filthy from head to foot, but silent with joy and admiration as they gazed upon the face of war. For many a gentle girl and boy that Friday and Saturday were the days of all their lives the days on which the pretty soldiers came.
It is only the small things of life that we are eternally questioning. We are reverently restful and serenely silent about the biggest things of all. A man does not discuss his wife's virtue or his soul's salvation on the kerbstone.
'That's what you'll do then, is it? said Fred Henry, in some exasperation. But she made no answer. There was a silence of futility and irritation in the room. Malcolm grinned fatuously. 'You'll have to make up your mind between now and next Wednesday, said Joe loudly, 'or else find yourself lodgings on the kerbstone. The face of the young woman darkened, but she sat on immutable.
They did not look at each other again, and the little vehicle pulled away from the kerbstone without the final nod of the head or shaking of the hand which usually terminated their meetings. The last sight she had of him, was as he stood looking down Waterloo Place, his eyes picking out the people one by one, as the miner sifts the dross from the dust of gold.
The Philosopher and the Strategist are but shadows in this book, but though I left them on the kerbstone, I took with me the memory of a comradeship which had been good to have.
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