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158 pages

English

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Description

Settle in for a whimsical, thoroughly enjoyable whirlwind tour through the prodigious imagination of American short-story master O. Henry. This collection of classic tales is sure to please long-time fans and first-time readers alike. If you love classic O. Henry stories like "The Gift of the Magi" and have been curious about the rest of this beloved author's body of work, Whirligigs is a great place to start.

Sujets

Short story

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 février 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775456728
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

WHIRLIGIGS
* * *
O. HENRY

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Whirligigs First published in 1910 ISBN 978-1-77545-672-8 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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I - The World and the Door II - The Theory and the Hound III - The Hypotheses of Failure IV - Calloway's Code V - A Matter of Mean Elevation VI - "Girl" VII - Sociology in Serge and Straw VIII - The Ransom of Red Chief IX - The Marry Month of May X - A Technical Error XI - Suite Homes and Their Romance XII - The Whirligig of Life XIII - A Sacrifice Hit XIV - The Roads We Take XV - A Blackjack Bargainer XVI - The Song and the Sergeant XVII - One Dollar's Worth XVIII - A Newspaper Story XIX - Tommy's Burglar XX - A Chaparral Christmas Gift XXI - A Little Local Colour XXII - Georgia's Ruling XXIII - Blind Man's Holiday XXIV - Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches Endnotes
I - The World and the Door
*
A favourite dodge to get your story read by the public is to assertthat it is true, and then add that Truth is stranger than Fiction.I do not know if the yarn I am anxious for you to read is true; butthe Spanish purser of the fruit steamer El Carrero swore to me bythe shrine of Santa Guadalupe that he had the facts from the U. S.vice-consul at La Paz—a person who could not possibly have beencognizant of half of them.
As for the adage quoted above, I take pleasure in puncturing it byaffirming that I read in a purely fictional story the other day theline: "'Be it so,' said the policeman." Nothing so strange has yetcropped out in Truth.
When H. Ferguson Hedges, millionaire promoter, investor andman-about-New-York, turned his thoughts upon matters convivial, andword of it went "down the line," bouncers took a precautionary turnat the Indian clubs, waiters put ironstone china on his favouritetables, cab drivers crowded close to the curbstone in front ofall-night cafés, and careful cashiers in his regular haunts chargedup a few bottles to his account by way of preface and introduction.
As a money power a one-millionaire is of small account in a city wherethe man who cuts your slice of beef behind the free-lunch counterrides to work in his own automobile. But Hedges spent his money aslavishly, loudly and showily as though he were only a clerksquandering a week's wages. And, after all, the bartender takes nointerest in your reserve fund. He would rather look you up on hiscash register than in Bradstreet.
On the evening that the material allegation of facts begins, Hedgeswas bidding dull care begone in the company of five or six goodfellows—acquaintances and friends who had gathered in his wake.
Among them were two younger men—Ralph Merriam, a broker, and Wade,his friend.
Two deep-sea cabmen were chartered. At Columbus Circle they hoveto long enough to revile the statue of the great navigator,unpatriotically rebuking him for having voyaged in search of landinstead of liquids. Midnight overtook the party marooned in the rearof a cheap café far uptown.
Hedges was arrogant, overriding and quarrelsome. He was burly andtough, iron-gray but vigorous, "good" for the rest of the night. Therewas a dispute—about nothing that matters—and the five-fingered wordswere passed—the words that represent the glove cast into the lists.Merriam played the rôle of the verbal Hotspur.
Hedges rose quickly, seized his chair, swung it once and smashedwildly down at Merriam's head. Merriam dodged, drew a small revolverand shot Hedges in the chest. The leading roysterer stumbled, fell ina wry heap, and lay still.
Wade, a commuter, had formed that habit of promptness. He juggledMerriam out a side door, walked him to the corner, ran him a block andcaught a hansom. They rode five minutes and then got out on a darkcorner and dismissed the cab. Across the street the lights of a smallsaloon betrayed its hectic hospitality.
"Go in the back room of that saloon," said Wade, "and wait. I'll gofind out what's doing and let you know. You may take two drinks whileI am gone—no more."
At ten minutes to one o'clock Wade returned. "Brace up, old chap," hesaid. "The ambulance got there just as I did. The doctor says he'sdead. You may have one more drink. You let me run this thing foryou. You've got to skip. I don't believe a chair is legally a deadlyweapon. You've got to make tracks, that's all there is to it."
Merriam complained of the cold querulously, and asked for anotherdrink. "Did you notice what big veins he had on the back of hishands?" he said. "I never could stand—I never could—"
"Take one more," said Wade, "and then come on. I'll see you through."
Wade kept his promise so well that at eleven o'clock the next morningMerriam, with a new suit case full of new clothes and hair-brushes,stepped quietly on board a little 500-ton fruit steamer at an EastRiver pier. The vessel had brought the season's first cargo of limesfrom Port Limon, and was homeward bound. Merriam had his bank balanceof $2,800 in his pocket in large bills, and brief instructions to pileup as much water as he could between himself and New York. There wasno time for anything more.
From Port Limon Merriam worked down the coast by schooner and sloop toColon, thence across the isthmus to Panama, where he caught a trampbound for Callao and such intermediate ports as might tempt thediscursive skipper from his course.
It was at La Paz that Merriam decided to land—La Paz the Beautiful,a little harbourless town smothered in a living green ribbon thatbanded the foot of a cloud-piercing mountain. Here the littlesteamer stopped to tread water while the captain's dory took himashore that he might feel the pulse of the cocoanut market. Merriamwent too, with his suit case, and remained.
Kalb, the vice-consul, a Græco-Armenian citizen of the United States,born in Hessen-Darmstadt, and educated in Cincinnati ward primaries,considered all Americans his brothers and bankers. He attachedhimself to Merriam's elbow, introduced him to every one in La Paz whowore shoes, borrowed ten dollars and went back to his hammock.
There was a little wooden hotel in the edge of a banana grove, facingthe sea, that catered to the tastes of the few foreigners that haddropped out of the world into the triste Peruvian town. At Kalb'sintroductory: "Shake hands with —," he had obediently exchangedmanual salutations with a German doctor, one French and two Italianmerchants, and three or four Americans who were spoken of as gold men,rubber men, mahogany men—anything but men of living tissue.
After dinner Merriam sat in a corner of the broad front galeria withBibb, a Vermonter interested in hydraulic mining, and smoked and drankScotch "smoke." The moonlit sea, spreading infinitely before him,seemed to separate him beyond all apprehension from his old life. Thehorrid tragedy in which he had played such a disastrous part nowbegan, for the first time since he stole on board the fruiter, awretched fugitive, to lose its sharper outlines. Distance lentassuagement to his view. Bibb had opened the flood-gates of a streamof long-dammed discourse, overjoyed to have captured an audience thathad not suffered under a hundred repetitions of his views andtheories.
"One year more," said Bibb, "and I'll go back to God's country. Oh, Iknow it's pretty here, and you get dolce far niente handed to you inchunks, but this country wasn't made for a white man to live in.You've got to have to plug through snow now and then, and see a gameof baseball and wear a stiff collar and have a policeman cuss you.Still, La Paz is a good sort of a pipe-dreamy old hole. And Mrs.Conant is here. When any of us feels particularly like jumping intothe sea we rush around to her house and propose. It's nicer to berejected by Mrs. Conant than it is to be drowned. And they saydrowning is a delightful sensation."
"Many like her here?" asked Merriam.
"Not anywhere," said Bibb, with a comfortable sigh. "She's the onlywhite woman in La Paz. The rest range from a dappled dun to thecolour of a b-flat piano key. She's been here a year. Comesfrom—well, you know how a woman can talk—ask 'em to say 'string'and they'll say 'crow's foot' or 'cat's cradle.' Sometimes you'd thinkshe was from Oshkosh, and again from Jacksonville, Florida, and thenext day from Cape Cod."
"Mystery?" ventured Merriam.
"M—well, she looks it; but her talk's translucent enough. Butthat's a woman. I suppose if the Sphinx were to begin talking she'dmerely say: 'Goodness me! more visitors coming for dinner, and nothingto eat but the sand which is here.' But you won't think about thatwhen you meet her, Merriam. You'll propose to her too."
To make a hard story soft, Merriam did meet her and propose to her.He found her to be a woman in black with hair the colour of a bronzeturkey's wings, and mysterious, remembering eyes that—well, thatlooked as if she might have been a trained nurse looking on when Evewas created. Her words and manner, though, were translucent, as Bibbhad said. She spoke, vaguely, of friends in California and some ofthe lower parishes in Louisiana. The tropical climate and indolentlife suited her; she had thought of buying an orange grove later on;La Paz, all in all, charmed her.
Merriam's courtship of the Sphinx lasted three months, although be didnot know that he was courting her. He was using her as an antidotefor remorse, until he found, too late, that he had acquired the habit.During that time he had received no news from home. Wade did not knowwhere he was; and he was not sure of Wade's exact add