Mr. West

“ West?"
He smiled.
"I'm justice of the peace here. If there's a hint of trouble from Boglin or Skeelty, come directly to me."
"Thank you, Mr. West. I will."
With this he nodded cheerfully and went away. ”

“ She is no longer the little angel, though I cannot tell her height or her weight; but her husband thinks she is just as much of an angel now as when she fed him on doughnuts upon the flat rock in the garden.
Ah, here comes Harry! He is a fine-looking man, rather tall; and though he does not wear a mustache, I have no doubt Mrs. West thinks he is handsome—which is all very well, provided he does not think so himself.
"This is a capital day, Julia; suppose we ride over to Redfield, and see friend Nason," said Mr. West. ”

“ He is really not a proper companion for you. Indeed, I may say he is quite the contrary, and that to my personal knowledge—"
"He's as good as you are and better!" growled Bud, ominously.
"Be quiet, boy! I wasn't speaking to you!" said West, as if he were addressing a slave. "If I hear another word from your lips I shall report it to your father!"
"Go 's far 's you like and see how much I care!" taunted Bud, but was stopped by Margaret's gentle pressure on his arm.
"Mr. West, I thought I made you understand that Mr. Gardley is my friend." ”

“ West. "Don't be afraid, Mr. Somerled. I've troubled you enough. Even if we really are married, I would rather die than hold you. I know everything—how it was about me you quarrelled with her. But I've spoiled only a few weeks of your life. I won't spoil the rest. It is she who ought to be your wife, not I."
"Who has said that to you?" he asked.
"It is her own idea!" Mrs. West cried.
"Then it is a very foolish idea," said he. "Mrs. West and I never had it. If you love Basil Norman, Barrie, I won't stand in your way. But if you don't love him, by heaven he shan't take you from me." ”

“ To be thus opposed roused all the devil within him—it was his own expression; and he grew to hate Mr. West with an exceeding bitter hatred.
The chimes were ordered—to play one tune only. Mr. West asked, when the thing was absolutely inevitable, that at least some sweet and sacred melody, acceptable to church-going ears, might be chosen; but Captain Monk fixed on a sea-song that was a favourite of his own—"The Bay of Biscay." At the end of every hour, when the clock had struck, the Bay of Biscay was to burst forth to charm the parish. ”

“ But no more of politics. I am sure you must have more than sufficient at home.
"I will turn to a more pleasant subject and give you a slight history of the American artists now in London.
"At the head stands Mr. West. He stands and has stood so long preëminent that I could relate but little of his history that would be new to you, so that I shall confine myself only to what has fallen under my own observation, and, of course, my remarks will be few.
"As a painter Mr. West can be accused of as few faults as any artist of ancient or modern times. ”

“ West arrived in Red River settlement in October, 1820, and at once began his labours by holding services in Fort Garry. For a time he was fully occupied in marrying many who had formerly lived as man and wife, though already married after the Indian fashion, and in baptizing the children. He at once opened a school. Mr. West made an exploratory journey five or six hundred miles westward, visiting Indian tribes. In 1823 he erected the first Protestant place of worship on the Red River, and in the same year was joined by Rev. ”

“ When they reached the hardware store, opposite Cotting's, Mr. West, the proprietor, was standing on the broad platform in front of it. In many respects Bob West was the most important citizen of Millville. Tall and gaunt, with great horn spectacles covering a pair of cold gray eyes, he was usually as reserved and silent as his neighbors were confiding and talkative. A widower of long standing, without children or near relatives, he occupied a suite of well-appointed rooms over the hardware store and took his meals at the hotel. ”

“ They say she never smiled after she gave him up as a hopeless case."
"Poor woman! I pity a mother whose son turns out badly. What a wreck of fond hopes!"
"Just so," added Mr. Nason. [150]
After visiting various interesting localities, Mr. West and his lady returned home. In their absence, a letter for Julia from Katy Flint has arrived. The Flint family are now in good circumstances. Joe is a steady man, and, with Harry's assistance, has purchased an interest in the stable formerly kept by Major Phillips, who has retired on a competency. ”

“ And without another word, he beckons in the outside man to help him. Our middle table, a mahogany, they seized; and the handsome oak chest, which had been our pride; and the master’s arm-chair—— But, there! I can’t go on.”
Mr. West felt nearly as sorrowful as she, and far more angry. In his heart he believed that Captain Monk had done this oppressive thing in revenge. A great deal of ill-feeling had existed in the parish touching the rate made for the chimes ”

“ Isn't it splendid to think that in two or three hundred years, when the West has been civilized and the Desert reclaimed as your pioneer forefathers civilized and reclaimed the East, when wealth and culture have come, a man's social standing will be determined by his relation to us and people will be proud of what we are doing? After all, Mr. Holmes, the only difference between the East and the West seems to be that you have ancestors and that we are going to be ancestors. ”

“ Immediately after a dinner that had scarcely satisfied a healthy Texas appetite he lounged gloomily in the deck chair which was now his stateroom. Jauntily Geoffrey West came and sat at his side.
“Mr. Larned,” he said, “I’ve got something for you.”
And, with a kindly smile, he took from his pocket and handed over a large, warm baked potato. The Texan eagerly accepted the gift.
“Where’d you get it?” he demanded, breaking open his treasure.
“That’s a secret,” West answered. “But I can get as many as I want. Mr. Larned, I can say this—you will not go hungry any longer. ”

“ I see you have met him," replied Joseph Wegg, with a smile at the eager, pretty face of his visitor. "Bob West was a prosperous man and very careful about his own investments; so he became a sort of business adviser to my father and Mr. Thompson, and arbitrated any differences of opinion they might have. For several years, due to West's good offices, the two oddly mated friends were successful in their ventures, and added to their capital. Finally West came to them himself with a proposition. ”

“ Todd,’ he snaps, ‘but that’s just what I want to inquire into immediately. If you should happen to know of any reasonably clean, good-looking negro girl of not over seventeen, I wish you’d buy her for me, or whatever their beastly custom is here, and send her over to Maraban as soon as you can. I’d greatly appreciate it, and pay well.’
“You can imagine that shut me up right quickly and I left Mr. Markley to his own sour thoughts, whatever they were. ”

“ Comber was in the chair of honor, the only arm-chair in the room; Birkland and Pons, White and Dormer, and the little science master, West, were also there. Little West was so obvious and striking an example of his type that it seemed as though he had been especially created to stand to the end of time as an example of what a Board School education and a pushing disposition can do for a man. He was short and square, with a shaggy, unkempt mustache and that sallow, unhealthy complexion that two generations of ill-fed progenitors tend to produce. ”

“ CLARICE HELPING OWEN.—Page 60.
[62] "An old friend of yours," she replied, returning in a few minutes with an elderly gentleman, in whom Owen joyfully recognised his kind friend the Vicar of Westbrook.
"Oh, Mr. Sturt, sir, is it really you? I can't get up, sir, but I am glad to see you."
"Don't move, my boy. I have just heard of your accident from your uncle," he said, taking a chair which Clarice offered him, close to Owen. "I was passing through Barmston, and thought I should like to see you. You look very altered and weak," he said, kindly; "are you in much pain?" ”

“ Mellaire than “Good morning” on the poop. As for Mr. Pike, who eats three times a day with him, scarcely any more conversation obtains between them. And I am surprised by what seems the very conspicuous awe with which Mr. Pike seems to regard his commander.
Another thing. What are Captain West’s duties? So far he has done nothing, save eat three times a day, smoke many cigars, and each day stroll a total of one mile around the poop. The mates do all the work, and hard work it is, four hours on deck and four below, day and night with never a variation. I watch Captain West and am amazed. ”

“ His father did not live long after his return to his native land, and when he was twenty-one, Harry came into possession of a handsome fortune. But even wealth could not tempt him to choose a life of idleness; and he went into partnership with Mr. Wade, the senior retiring at the same time. The firm of Wade and West is quite as respectable as any in the city. [148]
Harry is not a slave to business; and he spends a portion of his time at his beautiful place in Rockville; for the cars pass through the village, which is only a ride of an hour and a half from the city. ”

“ But it is the essence of Mr James' Paradise that there is nothing there at all but a climate, a sweet soft climate in which the most that happens is one of those summer sprinkles that brings out smells. This fatigue of life, this hunger for the peace of nothingness, showed itself in his increasing preference for laying the scene of his novels in the great good places of this earth, where there is nothing more dangerous in the parks and on the terraces than deer and peacocks, and nothing more disturbing to the soul in the high rooms and interminable galleries than well-bred women. ”

“ Harry never spoke a saucy word in his life," interposed the friendly keeper.
"He should know his place, and learn how to treat his superiors. You give these boys too much meat, Mr. Nason. They can't bear it. Mush and molasses is the best thing in the world for them."
If any one had looked closely at Harry while the functionary was delivering himself of this speech, he might have seen his eye snap and his chest heave with indignation. He had evidently conquered his timidity, and, maugre his youth, was disposed to stand forth and say, [8] "I, too, am a man." ”

“ William West cut the black tape which encorded the large canvas parcel, and broke the big red wax seals. Meanwhile, Herr Barnoff, with affectation of entire unconcern rolled a cigarette and took up a financial paper.
"Bill," whispered Bushey 'to William West, "we shall 'ave to ply a game of bluff with this lager beer toff."
"Leave it to, me," said William West, "I never met the foreigner yet that I couldn't get the best of."
"They're a cloth-'eaded lot," agreed Mr. Bushey, lifting the flat folded bonds out. "They don't seem to 'ave no common-sense like us Englishmen." ”

“ She smiled. "I shall ask my friend, Mr. Harry West," she said, "to find out who it is."
And then, suddenly, she turned away, so that her father should not see that she was blushing. The thought, not in the least disagreeable, had occurred to her for the first time, that perhaps Mr. Harry West himself was anonymously going down into his pocket for her sweet sake.
XVI
The legless man was not in the habit of waiting for things that he wanted, when the chance to take them had come. ”

“ Tom emphasized the word “borrow.”
“Another thing,” he went on. “I don’t need money to continue at West Point. I am being paid for staying there.”
“Paid! Huh! What’s this country coming to, anyhow, when it squanders money on such foolishness?” snorted the crabbed old man.
Tom did not answer that question. It was too big. What he did say was:
“Mr. Doolittle, I have called on you in reference to a deed of trust my father drew shortly before his death, naming you and Captain Hawkesbury as trustees of a certain piece of land—land where the railroad bridge now stands. ”

“ His ways are always better than ours."
"No doubt; but one cannot always realise it," said the schoolmaster wearily.
Mrs. Mitchell ventured no more than a quiet "good-night," as she saw Owen was listening to the conversation, evidently desiring to know what they meant. But when she was by herself out in the road, she said softly, "Poor things, they are both in trouble. Mr. Hadleigh is a clever man, no doubt, and gets the children on wonderful; but he has not got that quiet trust in God that Mrs. Hadleigh had. God give it him!" ”

“ Wake returned.
"I am sorry, Harry, to find that I have been mistaken in you. Is it possible that one who is outwardly so correct in his habits should be a thief? But your career is finished," said he, very sternly, as he entered the office.
"Nothing strange to the rest of us," added Edward. "I never knew one yet who pretended to be so pious that did not turn out a rascal."
"And such a hypocrite!"
"Mr. Wake, I am neither a thief nor a hypocrite," replied Harry, with spirit.
"I found four of the coins—four half dollars—which I marked first, at Mrs. Flint's," said the senior, severely. ”

“ This accident might never have happened but for Norris. I saw him push Owen just as he was stepping down; and having his arms full, he could not save himself."
Mr. Hadleigh went in to see the boy, before he went round to the police-court, and stayed some little time with him.
Owen asked to be sent back to Westbrook; he was sure some there would care for him for his father's sake; and he had not forgotten his uncle's words in the train, that if anyone could not work they had no right to live.
"It is impossible you should be moved, at any rate for some weeks," he said. "Why do you want to go?" ”