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200 pages

English

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If you're in the mood for a wildly hilarious comic romp, give Thorne Smith's The Bishop's Jaegars a read. Adrift and listless, a wealthy coffee heir is searching for meaning in life. His secretary decides to shake things up and help him get back on track. Before long, the pair finds themselves at the center of a bizarre coterie of characters who invade a nudist colony.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 février 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776529599
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.

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THE BISHOP'S JAEGERS
* * *
THORNE SMITH

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The Bishop's Jaegers First published in 1932 Epub ISBN 978-1-77652-959-9 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77652-960-5 © 2013 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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Prologue -Dealing in Drawers Chapter I - An Embarrassing Situation Chapter II - On a Park Bench Chapter III - Revelation of the Legs Chapter IV - Riding to a Fall Chapter V - Little Arthur in Quest of Drawers Chapter VI - The Loquacious Closet Chapter VII - Six Characters Embark in a Fog Chapter VIII - A Shot in the Arm Chapter IX - Bad Talk and Worse Weather Chapter X - Dinner is Served Chapter XI - Six Characters Embark in More Fog Chapter XII - From the Nowhere into the Unknown Chapter XIII - The Naked Physician Chapter XIV - In Pursuit of Privacy Chapter XV - The Bishop Insists on His Drawers Chapter XVI - The Advantages of Nudity Chapter XVII - Reactions and Routine Chapter XVIII - An Unassaulted Lady Chapter XIX - Sound and Fury Chapter XX - Magistrate Wagger Hears a Lot Epilogue -A Farewell to Drawers
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FOR FRANK C. REILLY FROM THE FOUR STRAY LAMBS IN FRANCE
The lambs being June, Marion, Celia,and the author himself, no less.
Prologue -Dealing in Drawers
*
1
BEFORE hoisting them over his sturdy, ecclesiastical shanks the Bishopcontemplated his drawers with nonsectarian satisfaction. It was notthe Bishop's wont thus to dally with his drawers. Far from it. As arule the Bishop paid scant heed either to his own drawers or to thoseof his parishioners. He took it for granted they wore them.
And although, during the course of a long and active careerdevoted to good works, the Bishop had been responsible for despoilingthe dusky limbs of innumerable South Sea aristocrats with drawers ofsurpassing unloveliness, he did not look back on his success in termsof drawers alone. Not at all.
To Bishop Waller drawers were merely the first move in a long,grim contest with the devil, a contest in which long, grim drawersserved as the shock troops of righteousness. They were an important butunattractive gesture in the general direction of God—a grotesque butessential step in a complicated ritual of spiritual costuming.
Perhaps it was partly owing to the fact that none of theBishop's so-called savage converts had ever turned to him and remarkedin tones of mild complaint, 'This Adam chap of yours never wore a pairof drawers in his life. Why should I?' that the good Bishop had so farfailed to give due consideration to the rights of the vastanti-drawers-wearing element still shamelessly thriving on this andprobably other terrestrial globes. For Bishop Waller was above allthings a fair man. It simply never occurred to him that a fellowcreature could commune either with himself or his Maker with any degreeof equanimity unless a great deal of his person was securely done intodrawers.
For women the Bishop's programme was a little more elaborate.Women were quite different. It was difficult to decide which half oftheir bodies needed to be covered first and most. Both halves weredangerous, both to be greatly deplored. Either one of them madevirtually impossible a constructive consideration of a life beyond.Repeatedly he had been pained to discover that in the presence ofunconverted island girls, men were quite content to risk the somewhatnebulous joys of the life beyond for the assured ones closer at hand.
Therefore it was the Bishop's conviction that all women shouldbe covered at all times. It was safer—far, far wiser. Men found outabout such things quickly enough as it was without having them dangledbefore their eyes. For this reason religion for men began with drawersand for women with shirt and drawers—preferably with the addition of avoluminous Mother Hubbard.
This morning there was a special reason for the Bishop's raptcontemplation of his drawers—new, judiciously selected, upstandinggarments. And if they could not be called things of beauty, these bravelong jaegers of the Bishop's, they did without question represent thehighest expression of the drawers-maker's craftsmanship. Not that theBishop's jaegers were in any sense crafty. No franker or moreuncompromising drawers could have been devised to protect the modestyof man. Once they had been decorously adjusted, they made absolutely noweak concession to the curiously roving eye.
As Bishop Waller, forgetting for the moment his rather shockingcondition, held his jaegers extended before him at arm's length, hepresented a picture of innocently happy concentration. He was gratifiedby the chaste austerity of these drawers. They were the ideal drawersfor a bishop. There was no monkey business about them. They pretendedto be nothing more than what they were—simply and definitelydrawers—long ones. Once a man had sought refuge behind or within theirrugged embrace there was little likelihood that any woman, no matterhow optimistic, would ask him to emerge from his unattractiveconcealment. The exterior view was far too depressing—too utterlydiscouraging to light dalliance and abandon. They had a numbing effecton the mind, those jaegers of the Bishop's. They reared themselves likea mighty tower of righteousness in a world of makeshift and evasivegarments. No one could imagine their wearer leaping sportively inpursuit of a wanton nymph. The very beasts of the fields would havestaggered off in horror to their lairs.
As he proceeded to plunge his vast nakedness into the evenvaster reaches of his jaegers, the exact structure of the Bishop'sthoughts is, of course, not known. However, it is safe to assume thatas he stood appreciatively before his mirror conscientiously adjustingthem to the last strategically plotted button—a formality seldom ifever observed by the average run of laymen—Bishop Waller was saying tohimself:
'I might have my faults as a bishop, but no one can say a wordagainst my drawers. Not a bishop in all these United States can producea finer pair than these.'
So much for the Bishop for the time being, now that he has atlast got himself into his drawers and girded his loins withrighteousness if not with romance.
2
The drawers of Josephine Duval were a different matter entirely.Accurately speaking, they were hardly drawers at all. They were morelike a passing thought or an idle moment. Compared with the splendidnew jaegers of the Bishop's—if one's chances of salvation will not beeternally damned by such a sacrilege—Jo's drawers were as nothing. Noteven a flash in the pan.
One is occasionally perplexed by the great quantity ofdifferent-looking dogs one meets in the course of a day or a week. Oneis given pause by the fact that such totally unrelated objects inappearance should be even loosely classified under the covering name ofdog. Yet in spite of this, one seldom or rarely ever stops to considerhow many different-looking drawers there are in the world eithergracing or disgracing the limbs of humanity. Perhaps this is due to thefact that one gets more opportunity to look at dogs than at drawers,which is, no doubt, just as well for everybody concerned. However, thefact still remains that drawers can be so bewilderingly different andyet come under the general classification or family name of drawers.
Between the Bishop's drawers and Jo's drawers lay all thedifference in the world—different aims and aspirations, a differentphilosophy of life—a gulf, in fact, which could never be bridged exceptunder the most incredible circumstances with which there is no occasionhere to deal. No good end can be served by further prolonging thisrather questionable comparison.
Looking logically at Jo's drawers—an attitude exceedinglydifficult to maintain when they were inhabited as only Jo could inhabitthem—one could see no proper reason for their being in existence atall. To say that they were the direct antitheses of the medieval ceinturede chasteté is to state the case mildly. Not that this brief consideration of theyoung lady's even briefer garments is to be regarded as a plea for thereturn of the chastity belt. On the contrary. There are too many locksalready in this world. As a matter of record the efficacy of thechastity belt has never been clearly established. Love has ever had thelast laugh on the locksmith. Furthermore, the belief is now held byseveral eminent students of the question that the employment of thechastity belt was directly responsible for the rapid rise of a class ofgentlemen extremely annoying to absent husbands because of their nimbleand industrious fingers. As time passed and experience was passed alongwith it, respectable husbands found that not only were their women nolonger secure but also neither were their treasure boxes and safedeposit vaults. This situation was just too bad. During foreign warsand crusades the activities of these notoriously home-loving pick-locksbecame so wide-spread, in fact so much in demand, that medievallock-smiths grew quite inured to the sound of ironical laughter.
But if conditions were loose in those days, they are runningwild to day. The time when women selected their nether garmentslogically has long since passed into oblivion. It is the regrettabletendency of the times for women to regard this item of their apparelnot in the light of logic but rather in that of allurement. And men arejust low enough to regard this change with approval. Even the nameitself has fallen into disrepute, as if it suggested some humorousconnotation. Whereas men with the utmost indi