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For anybody with money enough to live on, this is a mighty good time to take a vacation." There was a murmur of protest, voicing itself generally in a denial of the possibility for men who wrought with their hands and ate in the sweat of their brows. "I know that," was Tom's rejoinder. "Some of us can't afford to take a lay-off; I can't, for one. And that's why we are here this afternoon.
'How is it the firm can afford to pay you to go around these towns, sit in parks and smoke cigars, Woody? "'Oh, a man has to take a lay-off once in a while, said I. "I went over to the bank where the old man had been, and in a few minutes sold them some bonds.
My parents left me a moderate fortune, and I have travelled pretty well and pretty constantly all over the world during the last twelve or fifteen years. How did I come to Needley? Well, you can call it luck, or something more than that, whichever way it appeals to you. I was feeling seedy, a little off-color, and I started down for a rest and lay-off in Maine.
"Mebby it's four days after when this yere Sal hops outen the stage, an' for the next week thar ain't no washin' done whatever, while Benson Annie an' Sal works the wire aige offen their visit. "`A gent as would begretch two pore, hard-workin' girls a lay-off of a week, says Enright, 'ain't clean strain, an' I don't want to know sech a hoss-thief nohow'; an' we-alls feels likewise.
As he leaned over the windlass and looked down upon us he reminded me of one of the fairy-tale ogres. "Hello, Bob," he said, speaking to Barrett, whom he knew. "Quit the banking business, have you?" "Taking a bit of a lay-off," Barrett returned easily. "We all have to get out and dig in the ground, sooner or later." Blackwell laughed good-naturedly.
"You have had it a lot harder than I have, old chap," said the engineer; "take a lay-off and get some sleep." "I believe I will," agreed Jim; "I don't imagine that we will be disturbed for some time at least." There was plenty of hay in the warm, dusky mow, and a cozy, safe place to rest in.
Now take a lay-off if you want to, an' get this nonsense out of your system, then come back here. You know 'at Barbie misses you every minute you're away." "All right," I sez, "I'll try it. I want to leave this place once, the same as if we was both grownup, not as if we had had a child's quarrel.
It was the signal that her cruel duty was done, that the last "lay-off" sentence had been pronounced, that the work for the day and for the "season" was over, that it had come time to say good-by. "Good-by!" The voices echoed as we trooped down-stairs to the street door. "Good-by! Good-by!" The lingering farewells rose faintly above the noises of Broadway, as we scattered at the corner.
Those fellows needed an artistic cussing-out and a thirty-day hang-up at the very lightest. You can't hold 'em down with Sunday-school talk." Lidgerwood was frowning at his blotting-pad and pencilling idle little squares on it a habit which was insensibly growing upon him. "Where would I get the two extra train-crews to fill in the thirty-day lay-off, Jack? Had you thought of that?"
George Kirwin, gaunt, taciturn, and hard-working, had grown out of the dreamy, story-loving boy who had been one of the Slaves of the Magic Tree and into a shy old bachelor who wept over "East Lynne" whenever it came to the town opera house, and asked for a lay-off only when Modjeska appeared in Topeka, or when there was grand opera at Kansas City.
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