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This speech applies to too many American women, and so general is the habit of overcrowding, that she who would really determine what is worth doing at all must hold herself calmly and quietly in hand, and stand still with closed eyes for one minute, until her senses, dazed by the wild rush about her, have become sufficiently clear, and her hand steady enough, to pick out the diamonds of duty from the glass chips which pass with the superficial observer for first-water gems.
"I am merely a stand-between; that has been my business for years." "A stand-between?" "Yes, I stand between people and ignorance. I supply them with mental food, books of the first-water. They all know me, and look upon me as a public benefactor." "So you are a book-agent, then? And you want to sell me some books, I suppose? Is that your business here to-night?"
Only on rare occasions is the liquid undisturbed, and then it shines with the steely-blue transparency of those diamonds that are a class by themselves, superior to "first-water" stones. At the slightest agitation all the accumulated ooze and filth of generations rags and decomposing frogs and things unmentionable rise to the surface in turbid clouds.
There was not a photographer's camera to be had in those days; but what if a tourist with one in hand could have been there to take a snapshot at the priest and the maiden as they walked arm in arm to that squat little veranda! The picture to-day would be worth its weight in a first-water diamond.
It was triumph and victory and paean in action to go flashing along over this footing, smoother than polished marble and sheenier than first-water gems. Wade felt the high exhilaration of pure blood galloping through a body alive from top to toe. The rhythm of his movement was like music to him. The Point ended in a sharp promontory.
And straightway he shortened up the straps that held the bag in place, and, with a kindly pat and a cheery word which the grateful horse seemed to appreciate, went his way. I would like to be the mother, or the aunt, or even the first cousin of that boy. I would rather that he should belong to me than that I should own a Paganini violin, or a first-water diamond the size of a Concord grape.
An expert would have known immediately that it was a first-water product of an expert gunsmith. Big Pete noticed it as soon as I did and he could not keep his eyes from roving to it occasionally during the meal. “You may scalp me, stranger, fer sayin’ it, but I’d like mightily well to heft that tha’ shooting iron o’ your’n and examine it when we git through with chuck,” he said.
We must pass on to the next on our list, who is No. 4, the Lucus-a-non, or a sweeper who never sweeps. This fellow is a vagabond of the first-water, or of the first-mud rather. His stock in trade is an old worn-out broom-stump, which he has shouldered for these seven years past, and with which he has never displaced a pound of soil in the whole period.
You must have like weight of all them, except Rosemary aforesaid, which you must have twice as much of as of any of the rest; then mingle them altogether and shred them very small; then steep them in the best White-wine you can get, three days and three nights, stirring them once or twice a day, putting no more wine then will cover the Herbs well; then still it in a Common-still; and take not too much of the first-water, and but a little of the second, according as you feel the strength, else it will be sower.
The old man's trade was not entirely gone. Yesterday, an old-time lag, who had dealt with the Spider for many years, and who had "pulled" the Moorcliffe job the robbery of a summer mansion a few miles up the Hudson had "fenced" the proceeds at the antique shop. Ten thousand dollars' worth of first-water sparklers! Everybody that was anybody in gangland knew this.
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