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He could not explain that the shadow of the prison walls was a barrier he could not cross; that they rose to bar him from all the joy and happiness of young life. "Who in Mexico's talkin' about society? I said come up and eat supper with me and Joy and Keith. If you don't come, I'm goin' to be good and sore. I'll not stand for it, you darned old killjoy." "I'll go," answered the invited man.
I found myself listening to catch available ideas from the conversation of my friends. Sometimes I chewed my pencil and gazed at the wall paper for hours trying to build up some gay little bubble of unstudied fun. And then I became a harpy, a Moloch, a Jonah, a vampire, to my acquaintances. Anxious, haggard, greedy, I stood among them like a veritable killjoy.
"There, you old killjoy!" he was shouting. "Now stop your worrying. What do you think of that?" Larkin began a clownish Highland fling that eloquently spoke his thoughts. At last he came to rest, snapped his heels together, saluted smartly and said: "Lieutenant Red McGee, U.S.A., I believe. How do you like that you little shrimp?" "Maybe we'll be buck privates, for all you know."
And now, you see, he can't keep from weeping. The other one too came not twenty minutes ago, Father Lorenza, the Jesuit who became the Contessina's confessor after Abbe Pisoni, and who undid what the other had done. Yes, a handsome man he is, but a fine bungler all the same, a perfect killjoy with all the crafty hindrances which he brought into that divorce affair.
His natural turn was to be the very opposite of a killjoy; he loved not merely to be kind to others but to be "merry" with them, Mrs. Thrale tells us: loved to join in children's games, especially those of a "knot of little misses," of whom he was fonder than of boys: and always encouraged cards, dancing and similar amusements.
"Yes, in this place." "You surprise me." "Mon Dieu, they enjoy themselves because they have not that fear of death which is the great killjoy in all our earthly pleasures." "But why should they be members of this club if they do not kill themselves?" "One may be a member of the club without being obliged for that reason to commit suicide." "But then?" "I will explain.
"And has Merrihew told you to get a return ticket before you sail?" with half a jest. "Don't you think it will be successful?" a shade of disappointment. "There will be thousands of lonesome Americans over there. Out of patriotism, if for nothing else, they ought to come and see us." "They certainly ought to. But I'm an old killjoy." "No, no; go on and tell me all your doubts.
As there was a remote chance of the party left with the boats coming in contact with the blacks, it was deemed advisable to leave them a trooper, who would more readily recognise their whereabouts than the white men; therefore a boy known by the not euphonious sobriquet of "Killjoy," was selected to remain with the pilot and his two boatmen, and after dividing the big meat damper in five equal portions, the exploring party, consisting of Dunmore, Ferdinand, Larry, Lizzie and myself, struck out for the opening in the scrub on the Mackay river.
Still, he expected to remain for a week at least, which was very nice; and under these circumstances it was as natural as possible that his connoisseurship should be asked to pass judgment on the new little bachelor apartment in Bellingham Court, where his friend Kerr was just comfortably installed.... Where, also, no impossible stranger could intrude himself upon the company of his betters, with revivalist vocabulary and killjoy face.
He was provoked at not being able to bring himself within the diapason of this somewhat vulgar gayety: he was aware that his melancholy countenance, his black clothes, his want of sympathy jarred unpleasantly on the other jovial guests. He did not intend any longer to play the part of a killjoy.
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