Peck

“ Peck and another volunteer represented Wolffert, and Sam Pleasants and Harry Houston were my seconds. I had expected that some attempt at reconciliation would be made; but there was no suggestion of it. I never saw such cold-blooded young ruffians as all our seconds were, and when Peck came to close the final cartel he had an air between that of a butcher and an undertaker. He looked at me exactly as a butcher does at a fatted calf. He positively licked his chops. I did not want to shoot Wolffert, but I could cheerfully have murdered Peck. ”

“ Peck continued, to outward appearance, a prosperous lawyer. His inveterate economy enabled him to preserve the appearance of prosperity; but no lawyer of standing ever spoke of him without a shrug of the shoulder or a lift of the eyebrow. Rumor dealt somewhat freely with his domestic affairs, but I never knew the facts, and rumor is often as great a liar almost as—I had nearly said as Peck, but that would be impossible. My last personal experience of him was in the case of Mr. Leigh's suit to keep control of his railway. ”

“ The [Pg 331] common proverbial saying: To look for a needle in a bottle of hay is known as far back as 1655. Peck is used figuratively in the phrase: a peck o’ troubles. A very common way of telling a Yorkshireman that he is judging or treating others by his own standard of thought or action is to say he is: measuring a peck out of his own stroke.
Any kind of indefinite measure of anything may of course be taken by scowl of brow, or by the skeg of the eye, and things of minor weight may be judged by the heft or the lift. ”

“ Not seldom, indeed, the families who lodged on the lower perch were upset and terrified in the middle of the night by something coming flapping and tumbling over them, which turned out to be Miss Peck, who was “really very sorry to be any annoyance to them, but what with the chills which ran over her on [18] account of her sleeping-place being so particularly exposed to draughts, and what with the incessant spasms in her poor left leg, she could not support herself a moment longer, if she died for it.” These accidents, of course, did not make Miss Peck a popular character ”

“ I am Peck’s Bad Boy,” and he remembered me, and said, “What n’ell you doing here?” and I told him I knew 84what he was up against, going around the horn, and to San Francisco and Japan and the Philippines, and that I wanted to go along on his ship as a mascot, or a waiter or anything, and he said he didn’t know, but I would be a good mascot, as last trip they had a goat and a monkey for mascots, and I had a combination of both, and if he was going to make a trip to hades, or any climate hotter than the straits of Magellan, he thought I would be all right. ”

“ When his locks had been sheared and he had been trained to toe the line with the rest of the youth of Philistia, Margot could decide what she was going to do with him.
So William Peck was invited to a Thé Dansant at Lime Lodge, Wimbledon Park. He accepted, feeling quietly amused. With his rugged strength and sturdy indifference to boudoir ways, he would feel, he knew, rather like a Dreadnought at an up-river Regatta. But William Peck rather liked feeling like that; and of course he often did, associating, as a strong man must sometimes, with puny folk. ”

“ Peck explained everything by the fact that these were lake sailors instead of salt-water men, and that, consequently, they had the advantage of daily newspapers ever at their command. Furthermore, the bland and buoyant little man had saved the captain's life when they of the extravagant claims had the upper hand of the ship. Therefore, the voyage southeastward across the Atlantic, through the Indian Ocean, and into the China Sea, was drawing near an end, with Sinful Peck complacent as third mate, and the riotous thirteen in irons in the lazarette. ”

“ The grocery man laughed, and when the boy had got the pepper washed off, and had resumed his rutabaga, he said:
“That seals your fate. No man ever trifles with the feelings of the bold buccanneer of the Spanish main, without living to rue it. I will lay for you, old man, and don’t you forget it. Pa thought he was smart when he got me to put tar on my lip, to bring my moustache out, and to-day he lays on a bed of pain, and to-morrow your turn will come. ”

“ Scarcely daring to look round, and expecting every instant to be swallowed up alive, or torn to pieces by one of the giants, Miss Peck wished herself safe at home again, with all her might, in spite of Cock-a-doodle’s tyranny, when, luckily, 9there came a faint gleam of light, and she saw, as she thought, Cock-a-doodle himself sitting on the top of the little wicket-gate between the two yew-trees. ”

“ William Peck gasped—then pulled himself together for a great and stern effort. He must cope with this heresy. He must controvert this pernicious doctrine. It might be difficult, he knew. He was only a strong, silent Englishman, master of his job and in perfect physical condition. He was no dialectician. His strength lay in deeds, not words. How he wished Margot could see him casting up three columns of figures simultaneously, or taking a firm line with the office boy, or lying on the ball on a wet Saturday afternoon. ”

“ Pride saved me. It survived long after hope died. Sometimes, I even thought of the pistol I had in my trunk. But I had made up my mind to live and win. There, too, came in Pride. I could not bear to think of Lilian Poole and Peck. How she would congratulate herself and how Peck would gloat! No, I could not give him that satisfaction. Peck did me a good turn there. A strong enmity, well based, is not always without good results; but Peck should not smear my memory with pretended pity. ”

“ No, Annie,” he went on, “I can understand why Brother Peck is not the success with women, and feminine temperaments like me, that his virtues entitle him to be. What we feminine temperaments want is a prophet, and Brother Peck doesn't prophesy worth a cent. He doesn't pretend to be authorised in any sort of way; he has a sneaking style of being no better than you are, and of being rather stumped by some of the truths he finds out. ”

“ Dick chuckled.
"He seems to be rather bashful, though. If I visited a girl as long as he has been coming here to see you, I would propose and have it over with."
"Don't be too sure that you would. Mr. Peck is not bashful; he is only a little diffident. He is very clever, but I sometimes fear that he lets his light shine under a bushel."
"What has a bushel got to do with him? It takes two pecks to make one, and he's only one Peck." ”

“ She called the bad boy and asked him what in the deuce had been going on, and he made it pleasant for his Pa about as follows:
“Well, Ma, I know I will get killed, but I shall die like a man. When Pa met you at the depot he looked too innocent for any kind of use, but he’s a hard citizen, and don’t you forget it. He hasn’t been home a single night till after eleven o’clock, and he was tired every night, and he had somebody come home with him.”
“O, heavens, Hennery,” said the mother, with a sigh, “are you sure about this?” ”

“ I can hire out to whistle for dogs, and can go around whistling and enjoying myself, and make money, Don’t you think it is a good scheme?” asked the boy of the grocery man.
“Naw,” said the grocery man, as he charged the cheese to the boy’s father, and picked up his cigar stub, which he had left on the counter, and which the boy had rubbed on the kerosene barrel, “No, sir, that whistle would scare any dog that heard it. Say, what was your Pa running after the doctor in his shirt sleeves for last Sunday morning? He looked scared. Was your Ma sick again?” ”

“ We got him to join the Good Templars last night.”
“No, you don’t tell me,” said the grocery man, as he thought that his trade in cider for mince pies would be cut off. “So you got him into the Good Templars, eh?”
“Well, he thinks he has joined the Good Templars, so it is all the same. You see my chum and me have been going to a private gymnasium, on the west side kept by a Dutchman, and in a back room he has all the tools for getting up muscle. There, look at my arm,” said the boy, as he rolled up his sleeve and showed a muscle about as big is an oyster. ”

“ Peck. "You aren't in that hurry, Rufus, surely! Just as I was going to ask you to do something to oblige me, too!"
"What's that?" said Rufus.
Mrs. Peck descended into the yard with a hint of mystery. "Well, just this," she said confidentially. "That there Mr. Knight, he's a very nice young gentleman; but he's an artist, and you know, artists don't look at things like ordinary folk. He wants to get a moonlight picture of the Spear Point, and he's got our Columbine to say she'll take him there tonight. ”

“ Miss Peck therefore, being, as I have said, very much out of sorts, sat upon her perch with one eye shut, and the other scowling down upon Miss Spangle, who slept just beneath her; and her sufferings from cramp and chills were so uncommonly acute, that she [20] could obtain no ease except by continually twitching her legs up and down, flapping her wings, shaking herself violently, and making a very unpleasant noise in her throat, as if she were choking. ”

“ I must try it, and you must help me, dear Miss Peck, for Mrs. Fordyce won't. She [Pg 208] doesn't approve at all of my having invited Christina Balfour down here.'
'My dear, the world never does approve of anything done out of the conventional way,' said Miss Peck, with a quiet touch of bitterness. 'I think you have a very noble aim, and the heart of an angel; only there will be mountains of difficulty in the way.'
'We must overcome them,' answered Gladys quickly. ”

“ You are all dressed up, and have got a clean shirt on, and your shoes blacked, and I notice your pants are not raveled out so at the bottoms of the legs behind. You are not in love are you?”
“Well, I should smile,” said the boy, as he looked in a small mirror on the counter, covered with fly specks. “A girl got mashed on me, and Ma says it is good for a boy who hasn’t got no sister, to be in love with a girl, and so I kind of tumbled to myself and she don’t go no where without I go with her. I take her to dancing school, and everywhere, and she loves me like a house afire. ”

“ Peck started to tell him, being his partner, but Wally interrupted, politely but firmly.
"Gentlemen," said he, "if you have no objection we will go through. We are playing a tournament match. Mr. Curtiss, your honour, I believe."
Well, sir, for all the notice they took of him he might have been speaking to four graven images. Not one of them so much as turned his head. Colonel Peck had the floor.
"I'll tell you, Wat," said he, "I think it's your stance. You're playing the ball too much off your right foot—coming down on it too much. ”

“ Peep and Peck were always together, being very fond of one another. Peep was a most inquisitive chicken, poking her head into every nook and corner, and never satisfied till she had seen all there was to see. Peck was a glutton, eating everything she could find, and often making herself ill by gobbling too fast, and forgetting to eat a little gravel to help digest her food. ”

“ It don’t look reasonable that a man would catch epizootic and rheumatism just to fool his boy, does it? What did he give me the dollar for? Ma and Pa don’t seem to call each other pet any more, and as for me, they both look at me as though I was a hard citizen. I am going to Missouri to take Jesse James’s place. There is no encouragement for a boy here. Well, good morning. If Pa comes in here asking for me tell him that you saw an express wagon going to the morgue with the remains of a pretty boy who acted as though he died from concussion of a bed slat on Peck’s bad boy on the pistol pocket. ”

“ If I did, she would see to it that the chariot was empty.' He most always talks like that," ended Mrs. Peck in an aggrieved tone. "He's that airy in his ways."
A sudden trill of laughter from the doorway caused her to straighten herself sharply and trot to the fireplace with a guilty air. ”

“ Thomas Handasyde Peck, a polite invitation to dine. Mr. Peck was a very respectable man, and his lady a most valuable woman; [3] they were unwearied in contributing, to the utmost of their abilities, to the relief of the sons and daughters of sorrow. Ranking among the admirers of Mr. Whitefield, they possessed eminently the characteristic of his adherents,—they were abundantly less bigoted than other Religionists. In the agreeable family of Mr. Peck, I passed a most delightful day ”

“ Margot was minded to make the lesson permanent.
“My good creature,” she said, “I had no idea that you were as impossible as all this. I thought every human being with two feet could dance the one step!”
“I don't dance,” muttered William Peck faintly but doggedly.
“One-stepping is n’t dancing. It's putting one foot before the other. Surely you can do that! Or is it that you’re afraid to hold on to a girl?”
Dumb, driven, inarticulate, William Peck merely hung his head. ”

“ He admitted that he knew the animal was not a desirable animal, but he thought a recruit could get along with a kicking mule better than a chaplain. I had saved my best shot for the last, and I said, “knowing the mule was unsound, a vicious animal, and that my horse was sound and desirable, and worth more than a dozen such mules, did you consider that you was pursuing your calling as a minister when you gained my confidence, and not only sawed the mule off on to me, bereaved me of a fine horse, but took twenty dollars of my hard-earned bounty money as boot in the trade? ”