W. L. Alden

“ It is very nice to have all that money, but if you are pleased, that is worth a thousand times more."
"My dear Carlo!" said Miss McCartney solemnly, "don't you know that it is very wrong to gamble?"
"Oh, yes!" replied Furlani. "It is very wrong if you lose. I had a brother who always lost, and yet he would always play until at last he had no more money, and we were all very much ashamed of him, and told him that he was a cussed fool. But it is not wrong to play if you win. That is a very different thing. For myself I never lose more than I can spare. ”

“ Sue, I've run an awful pin into my leg. Why can't you girls be more careful about pins?" Sue replied that she hadn't any pins where they could run into anybody, and was going to say something more, when she screamed as if she was killed, and began to jump up and down and shake herself. Just then Dr. Jones jumped about two feet straight into the air, and said, "Oh my!" and Miss Travers took to screaming, "Fire! murder! help!" and slapping herself in a way that was quite awful. I began to think they were all going crazy, when all of a sudden I remembered the wasps' nest. ”

“ As we passed through a narrow street a dog fled across our path, and at the same time a woman rushed to the door of a house and hurled a stone, which struck Psmith on the ankle. As he held the injured limb in one hand and hopped hither and thither on one leg in order to maintain his balance, he lavished sarcasm and abusive epithets on the woman, and called the universe to witness that no woman had sufficient intelligence to hit even a Spitz dog with a stone. Why a Spitz dog should afford a safer aim to a woman than any other species of dog Psmith did not condescend to explain. ”

“ My canoe was much the best boat in the fleet, and I shall get another exactly like her.”
“There’s no doubt that you are a genuine canoeist, Tom,” said Charley. “You’ve had lots of trouble with your canoe because she had no deck, and at last she sunk and nearly drowned you, because she had no water-tight compartments; but for all that you really think that she was the best canoe ever built. Is everybody else convinced that his own canoe is the best in the world?”
“I am,” cried Joe.
“And I am,” cried Harry. ”

“ The boys sprang up in a terrible fright, and indeed there are few men who in their place would not have been frightened. The shock of the cold water was enough to startle the strongest nerves, and as the boys rushed to the door of the tent, in a blind race for life, they fully believed that their last hour had come. Before they could get out of the tent, a second wave swept up and rose above their knees. With wild cries of terror the two younger boys caught hold of Tom, and, losing their footing, dragged him down. ”

“ Of course Antonio knew of every foreigner who came to Venice with the intention of making a prolonged stay. There is no detective police in the world that can be compared with the Venetian gondolier in learning the ways and purposes of tourists. To know all about the foreigner is at once his business and his capital. The Englishman who comes to Venice and determines to spend six months or a year in that enchanted city, may reach this decision on a Saturday night and mention it to no living soul. ”

“ Any one who has camped near a rapid knows how strangely the running water sounds in the stillness of the night. Joe, who, although there were no mosquitoes to trouble him, could not fall asleep, was sure that he heard men’s voices talking in a low tone, and two or three times raised himself up in his canoe to see if there were any persons in sight. ”

“ There are no flies on you. That is why I always know that what you say is true."
Miss McCartney sighed. Furlani's English tried her sorely at times, but after all it was a small matter compared with his inability to comprehend that he was wasting his life. She felt that it would be absurd for her, an earnest woman, wholly devoted to philanthropic work, to marry him; and yet she found him thoroughly loveable. Morally and mentally he was little more than a child, but he had a child's charming sincerity and sunny cheerfulness, and she never for a moment doubted that he truly loved her. ”

“ You should have seen how that baby shined! The polish dried just as soon as it was put on, and I had just time to get the baby dressed again when mother and Sue came in.
I wouldn't lower myself to repeat their unkind language. When you've been called a murdering little villain and an unnatural son it will wrinkle in your heart for ages. After what they said to me I didn't even seem to mind about father but went up-stairs with him almost as if I was going to church or something that wouldn't hurt much. ”

“ If our clothes had really been worn out we could have made good clothes out of sail-cloth; and so could that wretched old idiot Mr. Crusoe’s grandfather, if he had only had the least bit of sense; for, according to Mr. Crusoe, he saved a great deal of canvas from his wreck. But of course he did the most stupid and preposterous thing he could do, for that was what he always did. Give him a choice of two courses to steer, one right and one wrong, and he’d never fail to take the wrong one. ”

“ Somebody then kicked him so sharply that he roused himself up, and, opening his eyes, was dazzled by the gleam of a bull’s-eye lantern. He could not at first imagine where he was; but, as he presently found that a big policeman had him by the collar, and was calling him “an impudent young thief,” he began to imagine that something was wrong.
“I’ve got you this time,” said the policeman, “and the whole gang of you. Where did you steal that property in your boat from, you precious young river pirate?”
“We’re not river pirates,” replied Tom. ”

“ I asked the Station-master, "that you really believe that a train has a ghost, and that ghostly trains run over actual railways at night?"
"If you were a railroad man," replied my friend, "you'd see the foolishness of asking such a question? Do I believe in ghost trains? You might as well ask me if I believed in Pullman cars. Why, man! every railroad man knows that ghost trains are liable to be met with almost any night. ”

“ He was a truthful man, and he felt that he couldn’t sleep in peace under a tombstone that was constantly telling such a thumping lie as that Maria was resting in the same burying-lot and that she was his beloved wife, when, in point of fact, she was another man’s wife and would be, at the proper time, lying in that other man’s part of the cemetery. ”

“ These Italian churches don't deserve the name. They are nothing but big, cold barns. Every one I've seen yet has been lit with candles, and nothing else. No lamps, no gas, no electric lights! Why, you couldn't get one of our Cyrusville preachers to preach in them, no matter what salary you might offer him."
I went into every church in Brescia that the guide-book told me I ought to visit, and I had so little time to give to each one that I felt that I was even as the traditional American who saw Rome in twenty-four hours. ”

“ The wind was now precisely what the canoes wanted to bring out their sailing qualities. The Sunshine soon showed that she was the most weatherly, as the Twilight was the least weatherly, of the fleet. The Midnight kept up very fairly with the Sunshine; and the Dawn, with her small lateen-sail, skimmed over the water so fast that it was evident that if she could have carried the big balance-lug of the Sunshine she would easily have beaten her. ”

“ There is very much to be said in favor of the theory that Columbus is a personification of the Sun, but that theory cannot be accepted either by a biographer or by any patriotic American. The one would have to put his biography of the Great Admiral in the fire, and the other would lose all certainty as to whether America had ever been discovered. We must resolve to believe in the reality of Columbus, no matter what learned sceptics may tell us; and we shall find no difficulty in so doing if we found our belief on a good strong prejudice instead of reasonable arguments. ”

“ Although there was a road not far from the river, and there were houses and small villages at a little distance from its banks, the boys while in their boat saw nothing but the water, the trees, and the sky, and felt as far removed from civilization as if they were sailing on an African river. ”

“ I understood in a minute what he meant, and agreed with him that the first canoe was far too big. It was a pity to see a full-grown man act so babyish about a thing, but it was a warning to me never to bother my head about following the example of my grandfather.
I had made up my mind, now that we had a boat, to provision her for six weeks or so, and to try to find some civilized country or to fall in with a ship. The island was comfortable enough, for we had plenty to eat and nothing to do, unless we wanted to do it, and for the first month or two I thought I would like to live there forever. ”

“ The longer he ran with the kite, the more he felt convinced that a tragedy was about to happen. If he kept on running he believed he would drop dead with [104] stoppage of the heart, and if he stopped running he knew that the kite would dash Aristophanes to pieces; and though, of course, it was not as if Aristophanes had been a white boy, still there was the chance that his parents would be disagreeable if he were killed. They were ordinary ignorant darkies, with no sort of love for science. But Lije had grit in him, in spite of all the science that he had pumped into his head. ”

“ That was all the comment he made on the art treasures of Brescia, until after we were again in the carriage. Then he said: "What you fellows can see in pictures I can't make out. I never took no stock in them. Why should I want to look at a lot of angels in nightgowns doing a walk-around, or a man stuck as full of arrows as a pincushion, or a woman holding a fat baby, or a tramp with a big stick, and nothing on in the way of clothes except a bit of buffalo-hide? It's all nonsense to pretend that folks really do take, interest in such things. ”

“ The sagacious animal, instead of eating up the cigar or trying to smoke it and making himself dreadfully sick, took it and carried it across the circus to a man who kept a candy and cigar stand, and made signs that he'd sell the cigar for twelve lumps of sugar. The man gave the elephant the sugar and took the cigar, and then the intelligent animal sat down on his hind-legs and laughed at the boy who had tried to play a joke on him, until the boy felt that much ashamed that he went right home and went to bed. ”

“ Then it cannot be forgotten that, in spite of the direct and repeated commands of Queen Isabella, Columbus sent cargo after cargo of slaves to Spain. He may have been very sorry to see the natives oppressed by Spaniards whom he disliked, but he certainly oppressed them quite as vigorously as did any of his successors. The contrast between his pious and humane protestations and his acts as an oppressor and a slave-trader is not easily explicable if we adopt the usual theory that he was one of the most sincere and noble of men. ”

“ Tom wished that he had the hatchet, but as it had been left in the boat, he had no weapon but his penknife. Thus armed, the two crept stealthily out of the tent to fight the bear, leaving Joe and Jim in a very unhappy state of mind, with nothing to defend themselves against the bear, in case he should attack the tent, except a tooth-brush and a lantern.
The outline of the animal could be seen, but Tom and Harry could not make out which end of it was its head. "You must shoot him just behind the shoulder," whispered Tom. "That's the only spot where you can kill a bear." ”

“ Crusoe, for he didn’t understand that by saying what I did I meant to say that his grandfather didn’t tell the truth about his great feat with two guns and a goat-skin umbrella. For you can’t make me believe that any man could carry a gun on each shoulder, and at the same time carry an umbrella in both hands, weighing about as much as a spare top-gallant mast, and spreading as much surface to the wind as a main-royal. ”

“ The gorilla was wearing Jewseppy’s coat, and was grinding away at the organ with one hand and holding Jewseppy’s rope with the other. Every few minutes he would haul in the rope, hand over hand, empty all the money out of Jewseppy’s pocket, and start him out again. If the man stopped to speak to anybody for a moment the gorilla would haul him in and give him a taste of the whip, and if he didn’t collect enough money to suit the gorilla’s idea, the animal would hold him out at arm’s length with one hand and lay into him with the other till the crowd were driven wild with delight. ”