United States or South Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Miss Wilkeson," said Times, consulting his watch he carried a gold one, with an enormous gold chain "you must really excuse me. Important business engagement at nine. Good evening." So saying, Tiffles precipitately retired, with the determination not to enter the house again until he knew that Miss Wilkeson was out of it. A week from that memorable day, Tiffles met Marcus Wilkeson on Broadway.
But he determined to give one night's exhibition, whatever might be the consequences. "I may as well die for an old sheep as a lamb," thought Tiffles. During this conversation, Patching was secretly studying the effect of the swamp, visible from the eastern windows; and Marcus was looking at the cracked wall in a fit of abstraction.
One evening, as Wesley Tiffles was passing through the hall to the door, after a rattling hour with the three bachelors, he was confronted by Miss Wilkeson, who chanced to leave the front parlor on a journey up stairs at that moment.
In one waited the bridegroom, his groomsmen Overtop and Maltboy, Marcus Wilkeson and Wesley Tiffles. They were a happy party, and not at all frightened at the approaching nuptials. Bog for such his friends always did, should, and will call him could not have been happier far from it! if he had held a sceptre in each hand.
Marcus indulged in the same habit to some extent, and, when he saw Patching looking at him without a nod or a word, he also was blank and speechless. "Don't you remember each other?" said Tiffles. "Mr. Patching. Mr. Marcus Wilkeson." The gentlemen shook hands, and said: "Oh, yes! How do you do? It is a fine morning. Very."
"Ef you want only one apartment, I can give you the one occupied last week by the Hon. Mr. Podhammer. You have heard of him?" "Of course," responded Tiffles, to cut short the conversation. "He spoke in Washington Hall, there, on the Cons'tution. I told him so." Tiffles was about to ask why, if the Hon. Mr.
Tiffles and Patching lifted up the thin carpet bags which reposed at their feet, and which contained an exceedingly small amount of personal linen and other attire, and went on board the boat, followed by Marcus, who was unencumbered with baggage. They entered the ladies' cabin. The thick crowd of people pressed into the cabin in their front and rear, and all about them, and scrambled for seats.
Tiffles, upon whom the small events of life made no impression, thought no more of Miss Wilkeson that evening, but smoked three pipes, told two funny stories, sang one comic song, and then went home, having previously exacted from the three bachelors a promise to call at his rooms and see at least one half of the panorama completed, on the following day week.
In the mean time, Wesley Tiffles had been examining the mysterious machine, which stood undisturbed in its corner, with the protecting screen still standing before it. Tiffles had first wiped off the dust, and then looked into it, and through it, and over it, and under it, with an eye that was predetermined to pry out a secret.
Patents for it could be and should be obtained in England, France, Germany, Russia, and Spain. While Wesley Tiffles was taking this rosy view of the "Cosmopolitan Window Fastener," he stumbled upon Fayette Overtop, Esq., who was walking briskly toward his office, and thinking over a hard case in which his services had been secured the day before.
Word Of The Day