Stephen Leacock

“ He is!" cried Winnifred, deeply moved. "Here on her knees she blesses him. And now," she added, "we must part. Seek not to follow me. One who has aided a poor girl in the hour of need will respect her wish when she tells him that, alone and buffeted by [Pg 17] the world, her one prayer is that he will leave her."
"He will!" cried the Unknown. "He will. He does."
"Leave me, yes, leave me," exclaimed Winnifred.
"I will," said the Unknown.
"Do, do," sobbed the distraught girl. "Yet stay, one moment more. Let she, who has received so much from her benefactor, at least know his name." ”

“ Under the terms of your father's will, I was called upon to act a part and to throw you upon the world. It was my client's wish, and I followed it. I told you, quite truthfully, that I had put part of your money into options in an oil-well. Miss Clair, that well is now producing a million gallons of gasolene a month!'
"A million gallons!" cried Winnifred. "I can never use it."
"Wait till you own a motor-car, Miss Winnifred," said the Lawyer.
"Then I am rich!" exclaimed the bewildered girl.
"Rich beyond your dreams," answered the Lawyer. ”

“ Then at last, one morning when Winnifred's temperature had fallen to ninety-eight point three, the Marchioness spoke.
"Miss Clair," she said, in a voice which throbbed with emotion, "Winnifred, if I may so call you, Lord Muddlenut and I have formed a plan for your future. It is our [Pg 35] dearest wish that you should marry our son."
"Alas," cried Winnifred, while tears rose in her eyes, "it cannot be!"
"Say not so," cried the Marchioness. "Our son, Lord Mordaunt Muddlenut, is young, handsome, all that a girl could desire. After months of wandering he returns to us this morning. ”

“ In some strange way this girl [Pg 154] had seized hold of me and dominated my senses.
The night was very calm and still, with great stars in a velvet sky. In the darkness I could hear the water lapping the edge of the raft.
I remained thus in deep thought, sinking further and further into the tar-bucket. By the time I reached the bottom of it I realized that I was in love with Edith Croyden.
Then the thought of my wife occurred to me and perplexed me. Our unhappy marriage had taken place three years before. We brought to one another youth, wealth and position. Yet our marriage was a failure. ”

“ Here sat Winnifred Clair day after day upon the terrace recovering her strength, under the tender solicitude of the Marchioness.
Each day the girl urged upon her noble hostess the necessity of her departure. "Nay," said the Marchioness, with gentle insistence, "stay where you are. Your soul is bruised. You must rest." ”

“ Will you accept?"
"Sir," said Winnifred proudly, "answer me first this question fairly. If I go upon the stage, can I, as Eliza, remain as innocent, as simple as I am now?"
"You can not," said the manager.
"Then, sir," said Winnifred, rising from her chair, "let me say this. Your offer is doubtless intended to be kind. Coming from the class you do, and inspired by the ideas you are, you no doubt mean well. But let a poor girl, friendless and alone, tell you that rather than accept such a degradation she will die." [Pg 21]
"Very good," said the manager. ”

“ A touch of powder to her cheeks and a slight blackening of her eyebrows, and the courageous girl was ready.
Lord Wynchgate and his companions—for they it was, that is to say, they were it—sat below in the sitting-room looking at the albums. "Woman," said Lord Wynchgate to the Landlady, with an oath, "let her hurry up. We have seen enough of these. We can wait no longer."
"I am here," cried a clear voice upon the threshold, and Winnifred stood before them. ”

“ The girl directed me, as I felt sure she would, towards the capitalist quarter of the town. We had soon sped away from the brightly lighted streets and tall apartment buildings among which my usual practice lay, and entered the gloomy and dilapidated section of the city where the unhappy capitalist class reside. I need not remind those of you who know it that it is scarcely a cheerful place to find oneself in after nightfall. The thick growth of trees, the silent gloom of the ill-lighted houses, and the rank undergrowth of shrubs give it an air of desolation, not to say danger. ”

“ I have always called forth a great deal of admiration in gentlemen, but I have always done my best to act like a lady and to discourage it in every possible way. I had been innocent enough to suppose that this would end with married life, and it gave me a dreadful shock to realize that such was not the case. The first one I noticed was a young man who came to the house, at an hour when John was out, for the purpose, so he said at least, of reading the gas meter. He looked at me in just the boldest way and asked me to show him the way to the cellar. ”

“ Leacock's humour comes from the very depths of a strong personality, and in the midst of a thousand whimsicalities, a thousand searchlights on the puerilities of human nature he never loses touch with the essential bite of life. ”

“ With these words a tall, athletic young man, attracted doubtless by the girl's cries, leapt into the corridor from the street without. His figure was that, more or less, of a Greek god, while his face, although at the moment inflamed with anger, was of an entirely moral and permissible configuration.
"Save me! save me!" cried Winnifred.
"I will," cried the Stranger, rushing towards Lord Wynchgate with uplifted cane. ”

“ Pall Mall Gazette.—"Like all real humorists Mr. Leacock steps at once into his proper position.... His touch of humour will make the Anglo-Saxon world his reader.... We cannot recall a more laughable book."
Globe.—"Professor Leacock never fails to provide a feast of enjoyment.... No one who wishes to dispose intellectually of a few hours should neglect Professor Leacock's admirable contribution to English literature. It is warranted to bring sunshine into every home." ”

“ With some tackle from the raft I had made myself a set of harness, by means of which I hitched myself to a boulder. By getting Miss Croyden to beat me over the back with a stick, I found that I made fair progress. [Pg 163]
But even as I worked thus for our common comfort, my mind was fiercely filled with the thought of Edith Croyden. I knew that if once the barriers broke everything would be swept away. Heaven alone knows the effort that it cost me. At times nothing but the sternest resolution could hold my fierce impulses in check. Once I came upon the girl writing in the sand with a stick. ”

“ After several ineffectual attempts I at last managed to obtain a hold of the girl's clothing and drew her on to the raft.
She was still unconscious. The heavy lifebelt round her person must (so I divined) have kept her afloat after the wreck. Her clothes were sodden, so I reasoned, with the sea-water.
On a handkerchief which was still sticking into the belt of her dress, I could see letters embroidered. Realizing that this was no time for hesitation, and that the girl's life might depend on my reading her name, I plucked it forth. It was Edith Croyden. ”

“ Powers is in the conservatory with Angela," said Lady Elphinspoon. [Pg 73]
"With Angela!" exclaimed Sir John, while a slight shade of displeasure appeared upon his brow. "With Angela again! Do you think it quite proper, my dear, that Powers should be so constantly with Angela?"
"John," said his wife, "you forget, I think, who Mr. Powers is. I am sure that Angela knows too well what is due to her rank, and to herself, to consider Mr. Powers anything more than an instructive companion. And I notice that, since Mr. Powers has been your secretary, Angela's mind is much keener. ”

“ Pall Mall Gazette.—"It is all not only healthy satire, but healthy humour as well, and shows that the author of 'Literary Lapses' is capable of producing a steady flow of high spirits put into a form which is equal to the best traditions of contemporary humour. Mr. Leacock certainly bids fair to rival the immortal 'Lewis Carroll' in combining the irreconcilable—exact science with perfect humour—and making the amusement better the instruction." ”

“ John said, "All right, Minn. When are you going to start?" The cold brutality of it cut me to the heart, and I went upstairs and had a good cry and looked over steamship and railroad folders. I thought of Havana for a while, because the pictures of the harbour and the castle and the queer Spanish streets looked so attractive, but then I was afraid that at Havana a woman alone by herself might be simply persecuted by attentions from gentlemen. They say the Spanish temperament is something fearful. So I decided on Bermuda instead. ”

“ But the cowardly Aristocrat did not await the onslaught of the unknown.
"You shall yet be mine!" he hissed in Winnifred's ear, and, releasing his grasp, he [Pg 16] rushed with a bound past the rescuer into the street.
"Oh, sir," said Winnifred, clasping her hands and falling on her knees in gratitude. "I am only a poor inadequate girl, but if the prayers of one who can offer naught but her prayers to her benefactor can avail to the advantage of one who appears to have every conceivable advantage already, let him know that they are his." ”

“ Masterman Throgton, the general manager of the Planet, was a man in middle life. There was something in his massive frame which suggested massiveness, and a certain quality in the poise of his great head which indicated a balanced intellect. ”