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Updated: June 4, 2025
A little girl with a lisp was trying in vain to divide her attention between the story and an imprisoned fly the boy next her was torturing, whilst Phrony was reading a novel on the sly. The others were all engaged in any other occupation than thinking of Hannibal or listening to the reader.
And when, weeks later, the lame boy was able to return to school, Keith had no firmer friend in all the Ridge region than Dave Dennison, and Dave had made a mental progress which, perhaps, he would not have made in as many months at school, for he had received an impulse to know and to be something more than he was. He would show Phrony who he was.
It was not a woman's tap, yet Terpy and Phrony Tripper both sprang into Keith's mind. Almost at the same moment the door opened slowly, and pausing on the threshold stood J. Quincy Plume. But how changed from the Mr. Plume of yore, the jovial and jocund manager of the Gumbolt Whistle, or the florid and flowery editor of the New Leeds Clarion!
One day after Phrony was removed, Keith was sitting in the office he had taken in New York, working on the final papers which were to be exchanged when his deal should be completed, when there was a tap at the door. A knock at the door is almost as individual as a voice. There was something about this knock that awakened associations in Keith's mind.
It read: "Can't be back till eight. Look out for Shepherd. Pay boy 25 if delivered before four." "You drop this at that number before four o'clock and you'll get a quarter." Then he passed on. That afternoon Keith walked up toward the Park. All day he had been trying to find Phrony, and laying plans for her relief when she should be found.
Wickersham looked her in the eyes. Business was only a convenient excuse. Old Halbrook could have attended to the business; but he preferred to come himself. Possibly she could guess the reason? He looked handsome and sincere enough as he leant over and gazed in her face to have beguiled a wiser person than Phrony. She, of course, had not the least idea. Then he must tell her.
"Well, with that she got so mad with Dave, she wouldn't speak to him; and Dave left, swearin' he'd settle Wickersham and show him up, and he'll do it if he can." "Where is he?" asked Keith, in some anxiety. "Tell him not to do anything till I see him." "No; I got hold of him and straightened him out. He told me all about it. He was right much cut up. He jest cried about Phrony."
An evening or two later Dave Dennison reported to Keith that he had found Phrony. Dave's face was black with hate, and his voice was tense with suppressed feeling. "How did you find her?" inquired Keith. "Shadowed the preacher. Knew he and that man had been confabbin'. She's clean gone," he added. "They've destroyed her. She didn't know me." His face worked, and an ominous fire burned in his eyes.
Haul on the bowline, the 'Phrony is a-rollin', Haul on the bowline! the bowline HAUL! At the "haul!" the Captain's foot would come down with a thump. Almost the first word little Hiram Joash learned was "haul!" He used to shout it and kick his father vigorously in the vest. These were fair-weather songs. Captain Hiram sang them when everything was going smoothly.
Keith warmed to the boy. "Phrony is a lot older than you," he said consolingly. "No, she ain't; we are just of an age; and if she was I wouldn't keer. I'm goin' away." Keith had to interpose his refusal to take him in such a case. He said, however, that if he could obtain his father's consent, as soon as he got settled he would send for him. On the basis of this compromise the boy went home.
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