Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
Then they advertised, in glowing language, the merits of the new land and Ryer Van Boompjes bought it and paid for his real estate. He was as proud as a popinjay of his island and he ruled over it like a Czar or a Kaiser. A few years before, Ryer had married a "queezel," as the Dutch call either a nun, or a maid who is no longer young.
About this time, heavy rains fell, for many days, and without ceasing, until all the region was reduced to pulp and the country seemed afloat. The dykes appeared ready to burst. Yet none of this impending trouble worried Ryer, whose greed grew by what it fed upon. In fact, the first day the sun shone again, quickly drying up parts of his farm, he had two horses harnessed up for work.
If McTeague had shown a certain energy in the matter the attempt might have been successful; but he was too stupid, or of late had become too listless to exert himself greatly, and the affair resulted only in a violent quarrel with Ryer. McTeague had lost his ambition. He did not care to better his situation. All he wanted was a warm place to sleep and three good meals a day.
Ryer told me," cried the little dressmaker, moving forward a step out of the way of a "glass-put-in" man, "that Doctor McTeague pulled a tooth of that Catholic priest, Father oh, I forget his name anyhow, he pulled his tooth with his fingers. Was that true, Mrs. McTeague?" "Oh, of course. Mac does that almost all the time now, 'specially with front teeth. He's got a regular reputation for it.
Old Washington Ryer, on his ladder, threw his cap in the air, and cheered louder than all the rest. But the parrot was dead frightened to death, very likely, or smothered.
Captain Ryer formed his troops in front of the house, and Sergeant Devoursney did the same with a part of his men, while the other portion was sent into the building, that was filled with men, women, and children, loading themselves down with the spoils.
In fact, until seven o'clock that evening groups collected about the door of the junk shop, where a policeman stood guard, asking all manner of questions, advancing all manner of opinions. "Do you think they'll get him?" asked Ryer of the policeman. A dozen necks craned forward eagerly. "Hoh, we'll get him all right, easy enough," answered the other, with a grand air. "What? What's that?
Yet although Ryer was rich, as wealth is reckoned in Drenthe, whence he had come, he was greedy for more. He skimped the food of his animals. So much did he do this, that his neighbors declared that they had seen him put green spectacles on his cows and the donkey. Then he mixed straws and shavings with the hay to make the animals think they were eating fresh grass.
"Well, why did you DO it?" cried Trina. "You might have asked ME something about it. Now, what have you done? I was talking with Mrs. Ryer about that house while I was out this morning, and she said the Hungarians moved out because it was absolutely unhealthy; there's water been standing in the basement for months.
In the course of it he declared: "If some persons, deceived by caricatures, false portraits, penny-a-liners, and lies, credit me with a colossal fortune, palaces, and above all, with frequent favours from women . . . I here declare to them that I am a poor artist, absorbed in art, working at a long history of society, which will be either good or bad, but at which I work by necessity, without shame, just as Rossini has made operas or Du Ryer translations and volumes; that I live very much alone, that I have a few firm friends; that my name is on my birth-certificate, etc., just as that of Monsieur de Fitz-James is on his; that, if it is of old Gaulish stock, this is not my fault; but that de Balzac is my patronymic, an advantage which many aristocratic families have not who called themselves Odet before they were called Chatillon, Duplessis, and who are, none the less, great families."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking