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I do not know how it has come about that in so large a proportion of recent fiction it is held to be artistic to look almost altogether upon the shady and the seamy side of life, giving to this view the name of "realism"; to select the disagreeable, the vicious, the unwholesome; to give us for our companions, in our hours of leisure and relaxation, only the silly and the weak-minded woman, the fast and slangy girl, the intrigante and the "shady" to borrow the language of the society she seeks the hero of irresolution, the prig, the vulgar, and the vicious; to serve us only with the foibles of the fashionable, the low tone of the gay, the gilded riffraff of our social state; to drag us forever along the dizzy, half-fractured precipice of the seventh commandment; to bring us into relations only with the sordid and the common; to force us to sup with unwholesome company on misery and sensuousness, in tales so utterly unpleasant that we are ready to welcome any disaster as a relief; and then the latest and finest touch of modern art to leave the whole weltering mass in a chaos, without conclusion and without possible issue.
Then followed toasts to a list of second-rate names, dancing girls and French milliners, who kept place of assignation for the dissolute crew, and maids of honour, who were no maids of honour, but adventuresses in the pay of great men to advance their interest with the king, and riffraff women whose names history hath done well to forget.
But talking with your servants, finding a bunch of horses upon hidden down in the mesquite behind the pond several things have changed my mind. My idea is that a cowardly handful of riffraff outcasts from the border have hidden in your house, more by accident than design. We'll let them go get rid of them without even a shot. If I didn't think so well, I'd be considerably worried.
Perhaps they think we're some of the riffraff they've been chasing, and that's why they keep aiming their blamed old guns at us that way. Hadn't we better hold up our arms, Maurice, and give 'em to understand that we surrender? Some fool might think it fine to take a snapshot at us and explain afterwards he thought we meant to fight!" "That's right, Thad; a clever idea. So up you go, my boy."
The effect on the Siberian mind was the same as a gold find. All the riffraff adventurers of Siberia swarmed to the west coast of America. We have only the Russian version of the story not the Indians' and may infer that we have the side most favorable to Russia.
"But he'll r-r-run her nose under!" Even as they spoke, the black tarpaulin swooped from sight behind a big comber. The next wave rolled over the spot, and the next, but the boat did not reappear. The Alma rushed by the place. A little riffraff of oats and boxes was seen. An arm thrust up and a shaggy head broke surface a score of yards away. For a time there was silence.
There slouched Dago, unfettered, but carefully watched. There were two more of the riffraff of the redoubtable ghost ranch, and two of the victims of the more skilful play, and potent doping, of the proprietors. All were under surveillance, several under charges, but where was Case?
Masks and white dominoes, foreign gentlemen, and the riffraff of the city, slow-driving carriages, showers of flowers, most of them faded by this time, everyone shouting and struggling at that wild pitch of excitement which may so soon turn into fury.
K. had put aside his slate pencil and, perfectly calm, said: "Tell your Warden that I am not going to paint that prison riffraff any more." After these words there was nothing left for me to do but leave him, which I decided to do.
War, the ironic, had caused this noble property to pass into the keeping of a distant and degenerate branch of an old and honoured house; and its present lord and lady, having failed to win the social welcome they had counted on too confidently, were doing their silly, shabby best to squander a princely fortune and dedicate a great name to lasting disrepute by fraternizing with a motley riffraff of profiteering nouveaux riches.
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