Morrison

“ Morrison knew well what a tumult was beneath the dour still face of the deacon as he rose from his chair, put on his plaid, and pulled his bonnet over his brows.
"John," he said kindly, "you are a wise man, and I aye thought so. It takes a Christian to lead passion by the bridle. A Turk is a placid gentleman, John, but he cannot do it." ”

“ Dr. Morrison was beaming. He had always been proud of his son. He said, addressing his wife, “He is all right; he is one boy who can take care of himself.”
“I’m sure of that,” answered Mrs. Morrison, “but for my peace of mind I wish he would keep out of trouble. I hope college will do that—keep him out of mischief.”
Just then the maid entered and announced that Paul was wanted on the telephone. He went into the foyer and picked up the receiver. It was Jack. “Hello.”
“Hello, Paul. Are you in trouble with your family about the affair?” ”

“ Morrison, who owed John Markley money, and had to go, told us in the office the next day that John Markley in evening clothes, with his great paunch swathed in a white silk vest, smirking like a gorged jackal, showing his fellow-townsmen for the first time his coarse, yellow teeth and his thin, cruel lips, looked like some horrible cartoon of his former self. Colonel Morrison did not describe the bride, but she passed our office that day, going the rounds of the dry-goods stores, giggling with the men clerks—a picture of sin that made men wet their lips. ”

“ But the abstraction that had marked Morrison's demeanor when he had looked over the Governor's head at the closed door and the later glint of jest in his eyes departed suddenly. The eyes narrowed.
"You talk of trouble that's impending this night, Governor North!"
"There'll be no trouble," insisted the Senator.
"Fools can always stir a row," declared His Excellency, with just as much emphasis. "Fools who are led by rascals! Rascals who would wreck an express train for the chance to pick pocketbooks off corpses! ”

“ Morrison!' repeated Horace. 'Why, Morrison is in my class at school; and the doctor is his father, I know.'
'What sort of a fellow is young Morrison?' asked Fred. He was handing cups and saucers to Horace, who was setting them ready for tea.
'Oh, Morrison is all right,' said Horace, who was clattering the cups and saucers; for he did not want to discuss his school troubles with his brother. 'I don't see much of him, [94] because he likes to go with the bigger boys. I say, Fred, do you remember our father?' said Horace; 'he's been gone away such a long time. ”

“ Morrison, the sailing-master, with his augury of the blue pigeon, is real, and nothing can be more consistent with human nature than that he should have cursed the bird when he did finally find himself in prison. ”

“ At least he has shown that he knows how to handle a mob. But we may as well calm down, North, and attend to our own business. We are making altogether too much account of a silly nincompoop. Daunt and I let our feelings get away from us this evening on the same subject. But we woke up promptly. Morrison was in a position to help his friends and to amount to something as an aid in that line. Now that he is running with the rabble, for some purpose of his own, he can be ignored. He amounts to nothing—to that! ”

“ Mac Tavish waited till his master had gone through his personal mail. The paymaster maintained a demeanor of what may be termed hopeful apprehension; this baiting, this impugning of honesty must needs turn the trick! No Morrison would stand for it! Mac Tavish found the laird's suppression of all comment promisingly bodeful. The fuse must be sizzling. There would be an explosion!
But Morrison began to play a lively tattoo on his desk with the knob of a paper-slitter and whistled "The Campbells Are Coming, Hurrah, Hurrah!" with the cheery gusto of a man who had not a care to trouble him. ”

“ Morrison had long meditated upon the proper course to take in order best to compass his ends. The unrest among the employees of the Rainbow Company came to him unsought, and he at once grasped the opportunity. The organisation of a miners' and millmen's union would be an obvious benefit to the rank and file; their manifestation of gratitude would naturally take the very form he most desired. To this end before the many he displayed the pyrotechnics of meaningless oratory, in much the same manner as a strutting peacock his brilliant tail ”

“ But Mrs. Morrison was that most foolish of womankind—an old woman striving to appear young. She had taken a strong dislike to the girl mistress of the white cottage at her gates, and was never tired of railing at her pretensions to beauty, at her lightheadedness, and at the suitors who stayed their horses for a word or a flower from across the cropped yew hedge of Carnation Maybold's cottage.
But John Charles, steadfast in all things, was particularly admirable in his silences. He let his mother rail on, and then, at the quiet hour of e'en stole down to the dyke-side for a "word." ”

“ I'll send the car back, father. I mustn't bother a business meeting."
A grimace that hinted at hurt wrinkled the candor of the Morrison's countenance. "I hoped it wasn't mere business that brought you—all!" He dwelt on the last word with wistful significance, staring at Lana.
"No, no!" said the Senator, hastily. "Not business—not business, wholly. A neighborly call, Stewart! The Governor, Mr. Daunt, Lana—all of us to pay our respects. ”

“ The profession was new at the time to the north of Scotland; and the people thought highly of an artist who made likenesses that could be recognised. But they could not think more highly of him than Morrison did of himself. He was one of the class who mistake the imitative faculty for genius, and the ambition of rising in a genteel profession for that energy of talent whose efforts, with no higher object often than the mere pleasure of exertion, buoy up the possessor to his proper level among men. ”

“ Did you see Morrison rush to the Senator's daughter? A fellow can work himself into a terrible state of worry over the dear, unprotected people, when he has nothing else better to take up his mind. But after a Scotchman goes crazy over a girl—well, when the whole of 'em hold Poet Bobby Burns up as the type of their race, they know what they're talking about!"
"I can hardly conceive of Morrison being a poet or relishing poetry or the ways of a poet," returned Blanchard, dryly.
"And he probably has never read a line of it in his whole life," agreed Despeaux. ”

“ The enterprising capitalists who pay wages are the people. The people are—"
He halted; the telephone-bell had broken in on him.
Morrison apologized with a smile and answered the call. He sprawled in his chair, his elbow on the table, and listened for a few moments. "But don't stutter so, Joe!" he adjured. "Take your time, now, boy! Say it again!"
He attended patiently on the speaker.
"They won't take your word on the matter, you say? Why, Joe, that's not courteous in the case of an American Legion commander! Hold on! I can't come down there! I have to attend the reception at Senator Corson's." ”

“ Morrison was swiftly reproachful in his answer, and there came a pause, Morrison perhaps interrogating his conscience, and Heyst preserving a mien of unperturbed, polite interest.
“I prayed like a child, of course. I believe in children praying—well, women, too, but I rather think God expects men to be more self-reliant. ”

“ I don't like to seem too forward in suggesting what it is."
"Nothing you can say or do from now on will seem forward, Morrison. Even if you should order that Hereford steer, there, at the door, to bang us over our heads with his shillalah, it would seem merely like an anticlimax, matched with the rest of your cheek! What's the contract?"
"You and North stated the terms of it, yourselves, when you were campaigning last election. You said that if you were elected you'd be the servants of the people." ”

“ But jumping back to the main subject—Stewart Morrison! Seeing what he is, in the water-power matter, I hoped I could smooth things by your getting next to him. I'm sorry you have been so much annoyed, Daunt! He may make it uncomfortable by his mouth, but he cannot control anything by direct political influence. Absolutely not!" The Senator was recovering his confidence in himself as a leader; he started up from his chair and stamped down an emphatic foot. "He is a nonentity in that direction. Politics will handle the thing! The legislature will be all right! ”

“ God will still make water run downhill, but it will run for the profit of the men who peddle what it performs. I'll be glad to have you help me in that warning!"
"Exactly!" agreed Mr. Daunt. "When you and I are thoroughly en rapport, we can accomplish wonders." His rush of the willing Morrison to the door had accomplished one purpose: he had created a diversion that staved off further political disagreement for the moment. "You must pardon my haste in being off, Mister Mayor. ”

“ And I'm going to show folks that they'll be eating poison-ivy out of the Morrison crib—even if I have to put the poison-ivy in there myself. This is no time to be squeamish, Blanchard! You've got to do your part in nailing a disturber like Morrison to the cross. Speak like a business man and say that he is dangerous in good business. ”

“ This knowledge shocked John inexpressibly, and in the depth of his horror and grief he craved some human sympathy.
"I must go and see Dr. Morrison," he said one night to Jenny.
"And you'll do right, deacon; the grip o' his hand and the shining o' his eyes in yours will do you good; forbye, you ken weel you arena fit to guide yoursel', let alane Davie. You are too angry, and angry men tell many a lie to themsel's."
There is often something luminous in the face of a good man, and Dr. Morrison had this peculiarity in a remarkable degree. ”

“ But though all acknowledged his genius, he was less successful in establishing his gentility. There was, indeed, but one standard of gentility in the country at the time, and fate had precluded the painter from coming up to it; no one was deemed a gentleman whose ancestors had not been useless to the community for at least five generations. It must be confessed, too, that some of Morrison’s schemes for establishing his claims were but ill laid. ”

“ Senator Corson and his daughter had arrived in the ballroom. The Senator was promptly and intensely interested in this cocksure declaration by Morrison.
"Your promise is the same as hard cash for me and the level-headed ones," retorted Commander Lanigan. "But whether it's the Northern Lights in the skies or plain hellishness in folks or somebody underneath stirring and stirring trouble and starting lies, I don't know! Lots of good boys have stopped being level-headed! I'll hold the gang down if I can, sir. But what I want to know is, can we depend on you to tend to Capitol Hill? ”

“ MORRISON, WALTER (1836–1921) , man of business and philanthropist, born in London 21 May 1836, was the fifth son of James Morrison, of the firm of Morrison, Dillon, & Co., by his wife, Mary, daughter of John Todd, of the same firm. Walter Morrison was heir to a share, which was largely increased during his own lifetime, of a great fortune made in business during the Napoleonic Wars. He was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford, where, like two of his brothers, he became a redoubtable oar, and he also obtained a first class in literae humaniores (1857) . ”

“ I'm always ready to talk to a man that's got sense. Just answer a few straight questions. In the first place, you've been stealing from the mill."
"I tell you I haven't," broke in Luna; "but I can tell you who has." He looked sharply at Morrison.
Morrison waved his hand with wearied endurance.
"Well, you're foreman at the mill. If there's been stealing, and you know your business, you know where it was done and how it was done. If you don't know your business what are you there for, and how long are you going to stay? You say yourself the old man is sharp, and he is. ”

“ Morrison's clear hand in a book bought for the purpose, so that not even a printer knew anything about them.
This particular story, which she had heard many times, was of a boy who lived in a great old-fashioned house in the country, where there were beautiful things all about, both indoors and out. The only other child in the house was a little girl who looked down from a heavy gilt frame above the library mantel. The boy, who was just six years old, used to lie on the hearth rug, gazing up at her, and sometimes she would smile and beckon to him as if she wanted to be friends. ”

“ I’ll be after all of you for witnesses, so don’t get on the rampage anywhere in between times.”
“I guess, Morrison, old chap,” broke in Brenchfield, “this will end the flour and feed racket for some time to come. We fellows will have a chance to make a little profit out of our businesses at last.”
“Oh, you haven’t much to worry over,” replied Morrison. “You haven’t all your eggs in one basket like I have. ”

“ You're all right! Nothing is the matter with you! It ought to please you because you feel that way! Proves you are truly American. 'Don't monkey with the cop!' Just as long as we obey that watchword we've got a good government!"
Senator Corson was more infuriated by that bland preachment than he would have been by vitriolic insult. While he marched back to the table he prefaced his arraignment of Morrison by calling him an impudent pup. ”

“ The mayor stepped in when the secretary opened the door
After the secretary had closed the door and departed Morrison stepped forward. "Governor North, you're perfectly right, and I agree with you without resenting your remark. I did make quite a fool of myself last night. Perhaps you are not ready to concede that the ends justify the means."
"I do not, sir!"
"A result built on falsehoods is a pretty poor proposition," declared the Senator. "I refer especially to those fake telegrams and to your impudent assertion to the mob that I said this or that!" ”