Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 6, 2025
He found Son brusquely directing the cleaning out of an old stock of hunting-boots which Pilkings, père, had always believed would sell. Pilkings, fils, was bald, and narrow between the eyes. He looked at Father and nodded as though it hurt him. "I Is your father around, Mr. Edward?" Father inquired.
For Pilkings & Son had a rather élite clientele for Sixth Avenue, and Father had with his own hands made glad the feet of the Swedish consul and the Bolivian trade agent. A man from South Bromfield started to cap the pose, as low persons always do in these boarding-houses, but Father changed the subject, in a slightly peppery manner.
Alone, jobless, yet they were so recklessly happy that they went to a ten-cent movie and watched the extreme heroism of a young district attorney with the motionless eager credulity of the simple-hearted. As soon as they had installed themselves, Father edged shyly into his old haunt, the shoe-store of Pilkings & Son.
He walked from shoe-store to shoe-store, hopelessly. "Old-fashioned place," the shoe-men said when he mentioned his experience with Pilkings & Son's. "Be glad to do what we can for you, Mr. Appleby, but just now " He had reached the department-store section. Already the holiday rush had begun. Holly was in the windows; Salvation Army solicitors tinkled irritating bells on every corner.
They said good-by to the Tubbses and returned to New York, to the noisy streets and the thankless drudgery at Pilkings & Son's. In December they definitely made up their minds to give up the shoe business, take their few hundred dollars from the bank, and, the coming summer, open a tea-room in an old farm-house on the Cliffs at Grimsby Head, Cape Cod.
Pilkings said that he didn't believe there was anything whatever the matter with Father and that, even if there was, he shouldn't have a vacation. Every year Mother was frightened almost to death by apprehension that they wouldn't be able to get away. Father laughed at her this July till his fluffy hair shook like a dog's ears in fly-time.
It was evident that Mr. Edward Pilkings was not interested. Shyly Father added, "You know your father promised to keep a place open for me." "Well, now, I'll tell you, Appleby; it ain't that you aren't a good salesman, but just now I'm well, kind of reorganizing the business.
It informed him that Pilkings, père, was rather ill, with grippe, and that until he recovered "no action can be taken regarding your valued proposition in letter of recent date." Bewildered, incredulous, Father had a flash of understanding that he, who felt himself so young and fit, was already discarded.
Father ignored all these elegances and commanded a disdainful waitress with a frilly white apron, "Let's have a couple of tables together here, eh?" He himself shifted chairs, and made a joke, and started to select impressive food. He was used to New York restaurants, and to quite expensive hotels, for at least once a year, on his birthday, Mr. Pilkings took him to lunch at the Waldorf.
She no longer panted or felt dizzy when she ran up the stairs. She was a far younger woman than the discreet brown hermit of the dusty New York flat, just as the new Father, who had responsibility and affairs, was younger than the Pilkings clerk of old. Always she watched for Father's home-coming.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking