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Read Ebook: Hra Kenonen: Hänen elämänsä ja mielipiteensä by Kivinen Ilmari
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Ebook has 1116 lines and 49051 words, and 23 pages
What on earth is the matter with you? Are you going to fix things and join me at Bar Harbor or are you not?
WAYNE.
As I don't know how you want me to fix things, I can not join you.
BRIGGS.
Stuyvesant Briggs, what the devil is the matter with you? It's absolutely necessary that I have the Ashton stream for a hatchery, and you know it. What sort of a business man are you, anyhow? Of course I don't propose to treat that poet inhumanly. Arrange to bid in the tract, run up the price against your own bidding, and let the poet have a few thousand if he is hard put. Don't worry me any more; I'm busy with a fool crew, and you are spoiling my cruise by not joining me.
WAYNE.
He won't do it.
BRIGGS.
WAYNE.
Poet refuses to discuss the matter.
BRIGGS.
Fire that poet. You've spoiled my cruise with your telegrams.
WAYNE.
Look here, George Wayne, don't drive me to desperation. You ought to come up and face the situation yourself. I can't fire a poet with eight helpless children, can I? And while I'm about it, let me inform you that every time you telegraph me it costs me five dollars for a carrier to bring the despatch over from the station; and every time I telegraph you I am obliged to walk five miles to send it and five miles back again. I'm mad all through, and my shoes are worn out, and I'm tired. Besides, I'm too busy to telegraph.
BRIGGS.
Do you expect me to stop my cruise and travel up to that hole on account of eight extenuating kids?
WAYNE.
I do.
BRIGGS.
Are you mad?
WAYNE.
Thoroughly. And extremely busy.
BRIGGS.
For the last time, Stuyve Briggs, are you going to bounce one defaulting poet and progeny, arrange to have survey and warnings posted, order timber and troughs for hatchery, engage extra patrol--or are you not?
WAYNE.
No.
BRIGGS.
Are you coming?
BRIGGS.
I'm coming to punch your head.
WAYNE.
When George Wayne arrived at Rose-Cross station, seaburnt, angry, and in excellent athletic condition, Briggs locked himself in the waiting-room and attempted to calm the newcomer from the window.
"If you're going to pitch into me, George," he said, "I'm hanged if I come out, and you can go to Guilford's alone."
"Come out of there," said Wayne dangerously.
"It isn't because I'm afraid of you," explained Briggs, "but it's merely that I don't choose to present either you or myself to a lot of pretty girls with the marks of conflict all over our eyes and noses."
At the words "pretty girls" Wayne's battle-set features relaxed. He motioned to the Pullman porter to deposit his luggage on the empty platform; the melancholy bell-notes of the locomotive sounded, the train moved slowly forward.
"Pretty girls?" he repeated in a softer voice. "Where are they staying? Of course, under the circumstances a personal encounter is superfluous. Where are they staying?"
"At Guilford's. I told you so in my telegrams, didn't I?"
"No, you didn't. You spoke only of a poet and his eight helpless children."
"Well, those girls are the eight children," retorted Briggs sullenly, emerging from the station.
"Yes, I do. They're his children, aren't they--even if they are girls, and pretty." He offered a mollifying hand; Wayne took it, shook it uncertainly, and fell into step beside his friend. "Eight pretty girls," he repeated under his breath. "What did you do, Stuyve?"
"Well?" inquired Wayne, astonished.
"What!!!"
"And sunbonnets--a sort of dress reform of the poet's."
"Well?" inquired Wayne coldly.
"And there was the 'house beautiful,' mercifully screened by woods," continued Briggs. "He calls it the house beautiful, you know."
"Why not the beautiful house?" asked Wayne, still more coldly.
"Oh, he gets everything upside down. Guilford is harmless, you'll see." He began to whistle Fatinitza softly. There was a silence; then Wayne said:
"You interrupted your narrative."
"Where was I?"
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