Jones

“ Jones. I forbore to look back, and slightly increased my pace. The sound came nearer and nearer. Someone was walking at my right-hand side. I looked straight before me, but was conscious of the gleam of a straw hat in the sunshine, and felt in the small of my back the irritating influence of Mr. Jones's smile.
So we walked to the end of Palace-street, where I was to turn off to the right. In taking that direction, with Mr. Jones close at my right elbow, I must needs knock up against him if I maintained the pretence of unconsciousness of his proximity. ”

“ Back from me shouting floor and ceiling came the chorus of images that stormed and clamoured for expression. Jones lay still and listened; he let them come. There was nothing else to do. He lay fearful, negative, receptive. It was all too big for him to manage, set to some scale of high achievement that submerged his own small powers. It came, too, in a series of impressions, all separate, yet all somehow interwoven. ”

“ It was the habit of Jones, since he was compelled to work among conditions that were utterly distasteful, to withdraw his mind wholly from business once the day was over. During office hours he kept the strictest possible watch upon himself, and turned the key on all inner dreams, lest any sudden uprush from the deeps should interfere with his duty. ”

“ Your cousin is an acquaintance of mine, Mrs Miller.”
“An acquaintance!” cries the man.—“Oh, heaven!”
“Ay, an acquaintance,” repeated Jones, “and an honoured acquaintance too. When I do not love and honour the man who dares venture everything to preserve his wife and children from instant destruction, may I have a friend capable of disowning me in adversity!”
“Oh, you are an excellent young man,” cries Mrs Miller:—“Yes, indeed, poor creature! he hath ventured everything.—If he had not had one of the best of constitutions, it must have killed him.” ”

“ You shall never leave this castle but for the ship, sir. The yard-arm is there."
"Stop, my Lord!" answered Jones, calmly, as the men crowded toward him; "stand back, sergeant, back, men! You cannot touch me; I have that which will protect me wherever flies the English flag."
"And that is--" said the admiral, smiling contemptuously.
"Your word, sir,--the word of an English officer."
The old man bit his lip in chagrined silence. He struggled with himself, looking at the easy, insouciant Scotsman before him.
"In seventy years it has not been broken," he said at last. ”

“ He had scarce spoke these words, when Mrs Miller, who heard them all, suddenly threw open the door, and coming out to him, in a flood of tears, said, “O Mr Jones! you are certainly one of the best young men alive. I give you a thousand thanks for your kind offer of your service; but, alas! sir, it is out of your power to preserve my poor girl.—O my child! my child! she is undone, she is ruined for ever!” “I hope, madam,” said Jones, “no villain”——“O Mr Jones!” said she, “that villain who yesterday left my lodgings, hath betrayed my poor girl; hath destroyed her.—I know you are a man of honour. ”

“ The trouble with Jones—his first name William—was that he possessed creative imagination: that luggage upon which excess charges have to be paid all through life—to the critic, the stupid, the orthodox, the slower minds without the “flash.” ”

“ In fact, it seem’d to be a thing decreed, And fix’d as fate, that marriage must succeed. 30 Yet some, like Jones, with stubborn hearts and hard, Can hear such claims, and show them no regard. Soon as our farmer, like a general, found By what strong foes he was encompass’d round— Engage he dared not, and he could not fly, But saw his hope in gentle parley lie; With looks of kindness then, and trembling heart, He met the foe, and art opposed to art. ”

“ That Jones was a Confederate spy, was highly probable; this absurd notion of a double had drawn me away from the right track; he was a double, it is true, but only on the surface; he was a Confederate acting the Federal.
Jones interests me intensely. There is something extraordinary about him. No man that I ever saw or heard of seems to possess his capacity to interest me. Yet his only peculiarity is that he changes clothing. No, not his only one; he has another: he is absolutely ubiquitous. ”

“ Nothing but the piercing black eyes which burned and gleamed out of his face in the darkness bespoke the high humanity of the man.
"Is it--" "Captain John Paul Jones, at your service, gentlemen."
"My sword," said Pearson, tendering it to him formally. "I regret," he added ungraciously, "at being compelled to strike to a man who has fought with a halter around his neck."
"Sir," said Jones, with a magnanimity as great as his valor, "you have fought like a hero, and I make no doubt that your sovereign will reward you in the most ample manner. Mr. Brooks, escort these gentlemen to my cabin." ”

“ Jones loved France and France loved him, and with him and France we were able to gain our liberty from the British yoke. He loved America because he loved liberty, and he put all his grand titles aside when making his last will and testament to sign himself, "I, John Paul Jones, an American citizen." Such men as Washington, Franklin, Hamilton and LaFayette, were his staunch friends. Kings and Queens delighted to do him favor. Louis XVI knighted him and presented him with a sword of honor. ”

“ Jones was only just able to choke a scream, for he recognised the tall dark man of his dreams. With horrible, gloating eyes he gazed down upon the writhing form of the old man, and his lips moved as in speaking, though no words were actually audible.
“He asks again for the name,” explained the other, as the clerk struggled with the intense hatred and loathing that threatened every moment to result in screams and action. His ankles and wrists pained him so that he could scarcely keep still, but a merciless power held him to the scene. ”

“ Farewel, Sophia; farewel, most lovely, most beloved—” Here passion stopped his mouth, and found a vent at his eyes.
And now having taken a resolution to leave the country, he began to debate with himself whither he should go. The world, as Milton phrases it, lay all before him; and Jones, no more than Adam, had any man to whom he might resort for comfort or assistance. All his acquaintance were the acquaintance of Mr Allworthy; and he had no reason to expect any countenance from them, as that gentleman had withdrawn his favour from him. ”

“ Carew's servant, Jones, was a very humane and tender-hearted man, and his heart swelled with anger as he obeyed the command of his mistress, and bore the fainting young girl out of the splendid abode of luxury and wealth into the cold and stormy night. ”

“ The look which Mrs Miller gave Jones, on this occasion, is not easy to be described. She burst into a kind of agony of transport, and cryed out—“Good heavens! is there such a man in the world?”—But recollecting herself, she said, “Indeed I know one such; but can there be another?” “I hope, madam,” cries Jones, “there are many who have common humanity; for to relieve such distresses in our fellow-creatures, can hardly be called more.” ”

“ Do not, therefore, think me impertinent, Mr Jones (since I must esteem one for whom I know Mr Allworthy hath so much value) , if I beg you not to converse with these wicked women. You are a young gentleman, and do not know half their artful wiles. Do not be angry with me, sir, for what I said upon account of my house; you must be sensible it would be the ruin of my poor dear girls. Besides, sir, you cannot but be acquainted that Mr Allworthy himself would never forgive my conniving at such matters, and particularly with you. ”

“ Jones held on like a man accustomed to every sort of foreign scenes in the world; and out of curiosity to see where he would go, I followed him for a little toward the thick of the noise and crowd, through Tank Square, where the water-carriers were sprinkling the ground from the sheep-skins on their backs as they walked, serpent-charmers and jugglers exhibiting, and a dirty Fakir rolling at the corner in seeming agony, with a crowd of liberty-men in Sunday toggery all round him. ”

“ Shutting up his glass, Captain Paul Jones leaps from the after flush-deck down among his sailors. Drunk with blood, grimed of powder, naked to the waist, the black glory of battle in their hearts, they merrily work their guns. It is as he beheld from the after-deck. The Ranger rolls to port as the Drake, all dripping, is fetching up her starboard side. ”

“ He had done and said everything to wound all that was woundable in an ordinary secretary, and though Jones fortunately dwelt in a region from which he looked down upon such a man as he might look down on the blundering of a savage animal, the strain had nevertheless told severely upon him, and he reached home wondering for the first time in his life whether there was perhaps a point beyond which he would be unable to restrain himself any longer. ”

“ And if you will notice, night after night, there is one dark form that ever hurries last and late toward the twinkling lights of Swain Hall,—for Jones is never on time. A long, straggling fellow he is, brown and hard-haired, who seems to be growing straight out of his clothes, and walks with a half-apologetic roll. ”

“ Poor Jones! I often think of him—a patriot of the super-dreadnought type, with an apoplectic conviction that the whole conduct of the War, on the part of the Allies, had been from the outset a series of gigantic mistakes. "I don't believe in all this spade and chess-board work," he used to growl; "up and at'em, that's my motto. Magnificent fighting material we've got at the Front, but what we want is brains, Sir, brains to use it." ”

“ I have really a great respect for you, Mr Jones, upon your own account; nay, I have a very high obligation to you for your generosity to my cousin. Indeed, I did not know how very good you had been till lately. Little did I imagine to what dreadful courses the poor man's distress had driven him. Little did I think, when you gave me the ten guineas, that you had given them to a highwayman! O heavens! what goodness have you shown! ”

“ Here Jones, having ordered a servant to show a room above stairs, was ascending, when the dishevelled fair, hastily following, was laid hold on by the master of the house, who cried, “Heyday, where is that beggar wench going? Stay below stairs, I desire you.” But Jones at that instant thundered from above, “Let the lady come up,” in so authoritative a voice, that the good man instantly withdrew his hands, and the lady made the best of her way to the chamber.
Here Jones wished her joy of her safe arrival, and then departed, in order, as he promised, to send the landlady up with some cloaths. ”

“ Madame Houdetot, Mrs. Adams and the rest adopt her example. And still the girl-Duchess holds Captain Paul Jones to herself:
“I am to have one evening—one before you go?” she pleads; and her tones are a woman’s tones and deeply wistful; and are not in any respect the tones of a Bourbon.
“One evening? You shall have every evening—ay! and every day.”
“Remember!” and as she makes ready to go the girl-Duchess takes firmer command of her manner and her voice; “remember! You have promised to lay an English frigate at my feet.” ”

“ Average Jones knew Professor Gehren by sight, knew of him further by repute as an impulsive, violent, warm-hearted and learned pundit who, for a typically meager recompense, furnished sundry classes of young gentlemen with amusement, alarm and instruction, in about equal parts, through the medium of lectures at the Metropolitan University. ”

“ Free! the dust rolled in a cloud from under his hoofs, and he vanished.
Jones's superb horse, crashing down on his haunches, just escaped sliding into the hole.
I awoke to the realization that Satan had carried me, in pursuit of the thrilling chase, all the way across the circle without my knowing it.
Jones calmly wiped the sweat from his face, calmly coiled his lasso, and calmly remarked:
"In trying to capture wild animals a man must never be too sure. Now what I thought my strong point was my weak point—the wash. I made sure no horse could ever jump that hole." ”

“ To Average Jones the memory of that day has never been wholly clear. Sodden with weariness, dazzled and muddled by the savage sun-glare, he followed, with eyes fixed, the rhythmically, monotonously moving feet of his leader, through an interminable desert of soft, clogging sand; a desert which dropped away into parched arroyos, and rose to scorched mesas whereon fierce cacti thrust at him with thorns and spikes; a desert dead and mummified in the dreadful heat; a lifeless Inferno wherein moved neither beast, bird nor insect. ”

“ I should not have degraded your name in a public kitchen; for indeed, sir, some people have not used you well; for besides making a public proclamation of what you told them of a quarrel between yourself and Squire Allworthy, they added lies of their own, things which I knew to be lies.”—“You surprize me greatly,” cries Jones. “Upon my word, sir,” answered Benjamin, “I tell the truth, and I need not tell you my landlady was the person. ”

“ Jones answered all his questions with much civility, though he never remembered to have seen the petty-fogger before; and though he concluded, from the outward appearance and behaviour of the man, that he usurped a freedom with his betters, to which he was by no means intitled. ”

“ Now, part of this story is to be vague as a mirrored face at dusk; and part is to be as precise as the reflection of green trees in the glass of the stream; and all is to be as capricious as the flight of that wonderful butterfly of the South which is called Ajax by the reverent, and The White Devil by the profane. Incidentally, it is the story of Jones and the Dryad.
The profession of Jones was derided by the world at large. He collected butterflies; and it may be imagined what the American public thought of him when they did not think he was demented. ”