George Westinghouse

“ Major Hubbard nearly reared up on his hind legs at the sight of him.
Even Marion began to look worried at the tales she heard. Along toward the end of the month one might have thought that the scholarly Herbert had some vague idea of trying to stampede the public into an orgy of buying.
"Buy Now—To-day," he added to his sign. "To-morrow May be Too Late."
The next evening Egbert was sitting with his feet at ease on the veranda rail of the Fairfield House when a car came rushing down the street.
"Great guns! Who's this wild Indian?" thought Egbert. "He'll be pinched if he isn't careful." ”

“ If you make out well you'll soon have all the business you can handle. But if you fail in that too——"
He bristled his mane, and Herbert knew very well what failure meant. When he reached home he found Aurora's picture and placed it on his bureau opposite Marion's photograph.
"I've noticed that nearly everyone has a mascot," he told himself. "Egbert has that silver-mounted rabbit's foot on his desk, and the president of the bank used to think that his paper weight was lucky—that queer little image with the large feet. Yes, even the major has a horseshoe in the top drawer of his desk. ”

“ George Weston is about twenty-nine years of age, five feet seven inches high, square-set, round-faced, fresh-coloured, pitted with small-pox, has a rather thick nose, his upper lip rather thick, his hair of lightest brown colour, which is sometimes tied behind, and at other times loose and curled; has much the appearance of a country dealer, or farmer. ”

“ She died at Caen in Normandy late in 1789 or early in 1790, of consumption, in her thirty-second year; and late in 1790 Weston resigned the living of Mamhead, but he retained the benefice of Little Hempston until 1823.
After the death of his wife, Weston devoted himself to art and literature. He was elected F.R.S. on 1 March 1792 and F.S.A. on 18 Dec. 1794, and lived for some years among the dilettanti in London. He was dubbed by Mathias and George Steevens ‘Classic Weston’ (Pursuits of Literature, 3rd dialogue) , and he had a numerous circle of lady admirers who fed his vanity. ”

“ Weston, not being blind, saw that something was amiss and tried with blundering motherly affection to push them back into one another's arms. She hardened, as is usual, their hostility. Each was mortally afraid of weakening, each suspected the other at once of softness and of guile and so held aloof and fed upon scorn. ”

“ If your name is Finch, why pretend that it is Winch? I don't like this shiftiness. It does not come well from a Westerner. Leave this petty shilly-shallying to Easterners like that vile rabble of widow-and-orphan oppressors upstairs, all of whom have got incipient Bright's Disease. If your name is Pinch, admit it like a man. Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay," said Mr. Waddington a little severely, holding a match to the fountain-pen which, as will happen to the best of us in moments of emotion, he had mistaken for his cigar.
"As a matter of fact, I'm not," said George. ”

“ A break in the side of the mountain formed a bay in the road, and in this shelter the car ahead came to a tremulous stop. The professor almost came to a stop, about to offer his services, but it only needed a single glance to see the cause of the trouble. On the back seat of the other car was a pair of suitcases, shining with newness, and on the front seat was a pair of newly weds, shining with newness, too, and acting quite in the immemorial manner.
"Poor things—it's all they know!" thought the young Petrified Man as he hastily stepped upon his accelerator. "Well, after all, that's his life. ”

“ Tommy Baxter had gone into partnership with his father in the wholesale produce business, and had a car with such a long wheel base that when it turned a corner it reminded Herbert of a hook-and-ladder truck, and he half expected to see a fireman perched on the rear end to steer the back wheels.
"It certainly seems easy enough to get along in the world of commerce," thought the young professor. "I am sure I ought to find something—somewhere."
He did. Marion's father, Major Hubbard, was not only the largest real-estate owner in Fairfield ”

“ I’ll risk it!”
“Don’t be a fool!” exclaimed Westby, losing patience.
“Curse that infernal sanctimonious scoundrel, with his ten per cent.”
“We haven’t time for regrets now, George.”
Newton reflected for a moment.
“Westby, we’ll go straight to Brighton, to her father’s, be married there, and then go to the continent. What do you think?”
“It is for you to think,” replied Westby, gravely.
“I know she’d do it. No, no! I could not in honour marry a girl with my affairs in such a state. There, I’ll take her back to Mrs. ”

“ And any one passing through that basement door in the evening might have been edified by the sight of a blue-eyed youth making clumsy entries in a very small ledger and inking himself to the roots of his hair. Whether or not little Miss Mercer was so edified, however, is another matter altogether, for when she appeared before Mr. Willets that evening, with Snootzy under her arm and Dotty's cage in her hand, she was hardly in the frame of mind to make any detailed observations. ”

“ An unhappy day was that Sunday for George Weston. He had violated principle, made concessions against the dictates of conscience (how poor a safeguard for him!) and had learnt lessons which taught him to despise those instructions which had hitherto been as a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path.
"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." George little thought how rapidly he was passing through those different stages on the downward road. ”

“ Bill's candidate, looking more belligerent at every tick of the clock, preserved his pressure against the other's shoulder and slowly straightened his figure from its stooping position. In the same grim silence Mr. Wilbur accompanied him upward, so that presently they stood like the two sides of a capital A, each young gentleman digging his feet into the rug, too dignified to speak, too proud to be the first to stop pushing. ”

“ They looked at each other as they used to look in the old letter-fly days, and when they left the office together a few minutes later you might almost have thought that they had gone for the water.
"Quick worker, all right," said Fatty as they reached the street. "He's got a customer already."
This first client of Herbert's was a querulous old boy with a piping voice who wanted to sell his farm in Hell Hollow. For reasons of his own he didn't say that for years he had haunted the real-estate offices of Fairfield without success. ”

“ Weston's exposure everything is going well, and we hope for the best. I sent George a note last night to tell him, and he came over for a minute. He behaved very well. He had none of the bravado which has made him so different and so dreadful, and he was more like his old self. He was let into his wife's chamber just long enough to kiss her, but that was all. I suppose to be the father of a son must sober any man.
November 20. Tom never comes any more to see [Pg 295] me or baby. ”

“ Weston does not seem to be the same man. The George Weston who can love this woman and be in sympathy with her is so different from anything I have known or imagined the old George to be that he affects me as a stranger. ”

“ I am not a rich man, Mr. Peterson, as you business men of Fairfield would describe a rich man. The utmost that I could scrape together was twenty-four thousand dollars. But every last cent of that went into shares of the Porfirio Gold and Rubber Company, of Mexico; and when I tell you, Mr. Peterson, the names of some of the men who are our largest stockholders, I think you can begin to appreciate one of the sources of my enthusiasm."
"If I could only talk business like that!" thought Herbert. "Did you buy any?" he asked, turning to Egbert. ”

“ We shall have to watch out. Now that they find we can't be bought, they'll try the other way. They mean business sure enough. But, by George, let 'em! We're up against a big thing, and I'm going to see it through if they put every gang in New York on to us."
"Precisely, Comrade Windsor. Cosy Moments, as I have had occasion to observe before, cannot be muzzled."
"That's right," said Billy Windsor. "And," he added, with the contented look the Far West editor must have worn as the bullet came through the window, "we must have got them scared, or they wouldn't have shown their hand that way. ”

“ Lady Salisbury's critical eye was following her like a searchlight, and altogether it wasn't surprising that after a wild swing Charlotte nearly missed her ball, which rolled forward a few miserable feet instead of sailing grandly half way to the hole.
The gallery gasped. Mr. Ogilvie groaned. And, fortunately for Charlotte, Lady Salisbury smiled. Yes, fortunately for Charlotte! And why? Because it only needed Lady Salisbury's smile to drive the blush from her cheeks and to stiffen her knees till they felt as firm as two steel sockets. "I'll show them," she breathed; "yes—homely as I am!" ”

“ Mr. Willets sighed over his little ledger with force enough to blow it nearly off the counter, and Miss Mercer even went so far as to leave Dotty without any water in his cup for two whole days. But one night when the wind was blowing gently against the shutter, the little milliner had a famous idea. "If the bricks blow down again," he had said to her, "all you have to do is to let me know." She stared at the stars steadily for five minutes. Then, picking up a tack-hammer and a pair of scissors, she went up on the roof and began picking and scratching at the mortar between the chimney bricks. ”

“ You have either got to give me up, or give up that hateful Nicodemus—and I prefer that you shall give up Nicodemus."
"But I can't live on your money!"
"No; but you can make enough yourself."
"How?"
"Oh, you'll find a way," she confidently told him. "You can brush up on your medical course, and be a doctor or something." She rested her chin on her palm and leaned over toward him. "Mortimer!" she whispered. He looked at her and his heart went on strike. "Do you love me?" she whispered again.
"Rose!" he cried, and his heart went back to work with an increase of wages. ”

“ There were only six families left, and only seven pupils to attend the school-house under the old Marlin elms, that same schoolhouse where Nathan Hale once taught before he went away to voice his deathless regret.
"And, out o' them seven, one's a bit simple," said Aunt Hepzibah. "Billy Bates. You remember him?"
"Yes," nodded Charlotte, frowning at what Margaret had said.
"The old folks haven't changed much—those that are left," continued her aunt. "A little crabbeder, you'll find 'em, and a little poorer. But that's Marlin Mills all over." ”

“ The water pouring in from the northern sluice was forcing the tillers violently against the southern sluice gates.
"If them boys," said Tom Blake in an overwrought voice, "lets them tillers go round, it's all up with my pair o' boats. Lemme do it, you——" The rest of the sentence was mercifully lost in the thump with which Thomas's feet bounded on the Ashlade's cabin-top. He made Liz fast to the circular foot of iron chimney projecting from the boards; then, jumping back to the land, he said, more in sorrow than in anger: "Lazy little brats! an' they've 'ad their tea, too." ”

“ As soon as he left her Herbert found a barber shop; and while the artist there was lathering him and scraping him and trimming him he closed his eyes and had it out with himself.
"Twenty-five dollars a week," thought he. "That's all I've got. By camping out and living the way I do I just manage to make it suffice. But as for getting married or buying a ring or doing anything—er—of a foolish nature like that, it is ab-so-lute-ly out of the question. I will call for Miss Marion to-night, because I promised her I would do so ”

“ Twenty-five dollars a week! I wonder, indeed, if a sum so small would even buy clothes for the one I passed on the hill! Half an hour of daylight left," he broke off, noticing the shadows. "I think it would be wise to find that water before it grows too dark."
Putting a collapsible pail over his arm, he followed the slope of the land to the gully which he was sure he would find not far away. The farther he went the closer grew the trees and the thicker the brush.
"It cannot be much farther," he told himself. "The land rises immediately ahead. Hello! ”

“ None of the Westons had ever been remarkable for genius—a fact of which they were rather proud than otherwise. They had for several generations been content to be men of local importance in a secluded nook of rural England, which is not the kind of life that is conducive to original thought or enterprising action. They had chosen wives like themselves from among their neighbors, and it was perhaps in several respects not altogether fortunate for Clarence Weston that his mother had been ultra-conservative in her respect for traditions, since he had inherited one side of her nature. ”

“ Now, although the suspension of this work had caused such irreparable damage, and the blame was attributed to him alone, he shrunk not from the censure, but endured all the sarcasm and contumely then unjustly showered upon him; nor was it till long after that the whole truth was told; that he had been the constant (though often unavailing) advocate of Westland’s rights, whilst we were under the domination of Christchurch.
“After much agitation, a change was wrought in Westland’s favour. ”

“ And no one who looked at little Miss Neames could reverse the verdict of Mr. Ridge. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were pink, and she carried herself with a certain cozy assurance that was a delight to see. Moreover, she had focussed all her art in the making of a blue silk dress which fitted her to perfection, and which brought out the roses in her cheeks and laughed at the hint of gray in her hair. In a word, it was quite impossible to contradict Mr. Ridge when he sank into an easy chair near the window and looked at her and said, "It seems good to be here." ”