Tomlin

“ Tomlin retorted.
“Tomlin's the best fellow in the world,” said Barnes when Fred had gone to the telephone. “Always doing nice things for people. You're bound to like him when you get acquainted. A little difficult, but sweet and sound at the core.”
Tomlin returned with the intelligence that Peggy would be at home and delighted to meet Mr. Deal. She also sent a characteristic message to Barnes, that he might come, but he would have to very very, very nice, as he had neglected her most shamefully. ”

“ Her father offered to help Tomlin along in business, but Tomlin insisted that his career was in studying bugs, and that made the father peevish and he said that Tomlin didn't need help. Naturally Tomlin then grew more peevish and said that the father and his money could go to the—well, wherever it is that rich men go on Judgment Day when they fail to get through the eye of the needle. And, of course, that made Lorraine peevish, and she said that Tomlin didn't love her. ”

“ And Tomlin, for all his expressed scorn, was tingling with ardent desire for such piquant beauty and vivacity as Pascherette's. If such a creature were the slave, then what could the mistress be? He assumed a more complaisant attitude, and added his vote: "A good way of passing away this odious calm spell, Venner. Let us go."
"Where is this great queen, my Colossus?" Venner asked.
"I will lead thee to her presence," replied Milo. "Thy boat will take us there in a few moments. Further on, beyond that point, the ship may lie safely in the haven." ”

“ A few days after leaving port Sopkin finds Tomlin’s chair on deck, empty, and, being ignorant of social customs at sea, seats himself thereon. Tomlin, coming on deck, observes the fact, and experiences sudden impulses in his fiery spirit. The electricity is at work. If it were allowable to venture on mental analysis, we might say that Tomlin’s sense of justice is violated. It is not fair that he should be expected to spend money in providing comforts for any man, much less for a man who carelessly neglects to provide them for himself. ”

“ Have I not said my treasure is for the man who wins it. Am I not waiting for the man able to take it, that I may go with him, too? [Pg 150] Here—" She suddenly flung down the pearls at Tomlin's feet, glided close to Venner, and thrust her red lips up to him, her violet eyes like brimming pools behind her drooping lashes. "Here, tie me, my Rupert. Here are my hands; there my feet. Bind me well, and go if thou canst. ”

“ We can reach Peters and such men as are left, by way of the alleyway to the forecastle; I know where weapons are to be got, and we'll put our fate on the cast. Come. Pearse is of a like mind, eh, Pearse?"
Pearse did not reply at once, and Tomlin saved him the trouble; for, recovering himself with a shudder, he put a hand on the companion-rail and started up the stairs with a laugh of contempt.
"I have no concern with your troubles, Venner," he said. "As for liberty, I am free as air. I believe patience is the medicine you need." ”

“ But just as Sheen arrived and the ranks of the expedition were beginning to give way before the strenuous onslaught of the Judies, the latter, almost with one accord, turned and bolted into their playground again. Looking round, Tomlin, that first of generals, saw the reason, and uttered a warning. ”

“ When her husband died from overwork of the stomach, she inquired and found that Tomlin had turned missionary to the Caroline Islands. She talked with her mother, and the mother, having known all along how Lorraine felt, said to do it, so Lorraine sent Tomlin a letter (the mail is delivered to stray missionaries once every three or four years) , took the Petrel, engaged Captain Farwell, and set out to locate Tomlin, being aided thereby through the Board by Foreign Missions which had him down on its payroll for $35 every three months. ”

“ Margaret Gaither, such as she was, was the sum and the substance of his first and last romance. He suffered, but his suffering has made him strong.
"Yes," Mrs. Lumsden went on, "it has made him strong and great in the highest sense. Do you know why he is called Neighbour Tomlin? It is because he loves his neighbours as he loves himself. There is no sacrifice that he will not make for them. The poorest and meanest person in the world, black or white, can knock at Neighbour Tomlin's door any hour of the day or night, and obtain food, money or advice, as the case may be. ”

“ Ordinary men would remonstrate in a case of this kind, or explain, but Tomlin is not ordinary. He is fiery. Seizing the back of his property, he hitches it up, and, with a deft movement worthy of a juggler, deposits the unreasonable Sopkin abruptly on the deck! Sopkin leaps up with doubled fists. Tomlin stands on guard. Rumkin, a presumptuous man, who thinks it his special mission in life to set everything wrong right, rushes between them, and is told by both to “mind his own business.” The interruption, however, gives time to the captain to interfere ”

“ He's the fellow that married Margaret Gaither; you remember her; she came home to die not so very long ago. Pulaski Tomlin adopted her daughter, or became the girl's guardian. Now, Tolliver, whatever you do, don't breathe a word about this Bridalbin—don't mention his name to a soul, not even to your grandmother. There's no need of worrying that poor girl; she has already had trouble enough in this world. I'm telling you about him because I want you to keep your eye on him. He's up to some kind of devilment besides exciting the niggers. ”

“ Tomlin had returned from the university and he and George sat on the front porch for their afternoon chat. It was far from the informal chat of the first day, however. The talk was being recorded for radio release later in the day. A television camera had been set up, focused on the two and nearly a dozen newsmen lounged around, notebooks in hand.
"You have repeatedly mentioned, George, that some of your kind may leave Zanthar for Earth. Why should any like you—why did you, in fact leave your planet? Aren't you robots happy there?" ”

“ And then she turned to Gabriel's grandmother, and took up the thread of her gossip where it had been broken by the arrival of Nan and Gabriel.
"I declare, Lucy, if anybody had told me, and I couldn't see for myself, I never would have believed it. Why, Silas Tomlin is a changed man. He looks better than he did twenty-five years ago. He goes about smiling, and while he isn't handsome—he never could be handsome, you know—he is very pleasant-looking. Yes, he is a changed man. ”

“ Tomlin knew, just as Barnes knew, that Nuttina left the Club regularly every evening at exactly twenty minutes of eight, which gave him just time enough to motor to the Raymonds and land on the doorstep at eight o'clock. ”

“ Tomlin in the parlour, Gabriel, an' I'll see about Ab's dinner; I don't want it to burn to a cracklin' before he gits it."
Silas Tomlin went into the parlour and sat down, while Gabriel stood hesitating, not knowing what to do or say. He was embarrassed, and Silas Tomlin saw it. "Oh, take a seat," he said, with a show of impatience. "What are you doing for yourself, Tolliver? You're a big boy now, and you ought to be making good money. We'll all have to work now: we'll have to buckle right down to it. The way I look at it, the man who is doing nothing is throwing money away ”

“ And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.
‘Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high
‘The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die—
‘The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!’
And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone. ”

“ One hour more would probably have seen them reconciled and laughing, if Tomlinson and Bucks hadn’t appeared. These comrades were more than Andrée could endure; she had in the beginning made a frigid attempt to be polite on Al’s account, but her politeness was neither desired nor understood. Tomlinson was a big, stout, brutal fellow with a jaw shaved blue; he didn’t hesitate to express his opinion of Al’s mode of living, and he did it profanely.
“How the hell you expect to have any influence?” he shouted. “You preach one thing and you practise another. ”

“ The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife,
And Tomlinson took up the tale and spoke of his sin in life:
"Once I ha' laughed at the power of Love and twice at the grip of the Grave,
"And thrice I ha' patted my God on the head that men might call me brave."
The Devil he blew on a brandered soul and set it aside to cool:
"Do ye think I would waste my good pit-coal on the hide of a brain-sick fool? ”

“ Well, you see, Tomlinson was a friend of mine. He told me that, after he had accidentally killed the girl, he was terribly frightened. He did not know what to do with the body. He had a mind to go to the police and confess all, but did not have the courage to do so. He remained in a trance, he thought, for hours, thinking of his fearful crime and the dreadful consequences. While he was in this deep, agonizing study and not knowing what he was doing, he picked up a small book on her reading table. ”

“ Our friend Liebst reports that since his poem, the Hoboes Convention, appeared in the Whiz Bang, he has received several letters from railroad managers requesting permission to name a few box cars after him. Oh, Fame, where is thy sting?
* * *
Ham Tomlin says he thinks he is growing old. He used to be able to kiss his wife 20 times a day but now it take him all day to get up nerve enough to kiss her once. ”

“ The explanation of Miss Polly's suspicions is not as simple as her recital of them. No one can account for some of the impulses of the human heart, or the vagaries of the human mind. It is easy to say that after Silas Tomlin had his last interview with Mrs. ”

“ After The Man from Shropshire comes Tomlinson, who, early in proceedings, displays irresistible tendency to discuss points of order with Speaker. New Speaker has, however, already got hand in, and, before Tomlinson, who remembers being on his feet addressing Chair, quite knows where he is, he finds himself sitting down again, Cranborne also on warpath, his very hair bristling with indignation at this fresh attack on the Church. Glib Griffith-Boscawen has a field-night; makes long speech on moving Instruction standing in his own name. ”

“ He remarked that one glance of comparison between Colonel Buncomb and Tomlinson would show which was the gentleman and which was the rogue. Then the first thing our friend knew the court had adjourned—they had all been turned out—discharged—acquitted. But the thing that most disgusted Tomlinson was that as he was coming away he saw the whole push, the Colonel and Larry and Blake, all piling into a big Panhard autocar. They passed him going about eighty miles an hour. You see, Tomlinson had paid for that car, and he'd always wanted one to run himself. ”

“ I had a mutton-chop for dinner the night I received my cheque, and this gross feeding, acting on an already enfeebled constitution, as they say in the obituaries, led me to believe that I could write just the kind of serial that Tomlinson’s Magazine would like. I planned it all out that night. Next morning I took a ’bus to the City to see the editor of Tomlinson’s Magazine and tell him all about my idea.
He consented to see me. He seemed to be a very young man and very tired, and had the fingers of a confirmed cigarette-smoker. ”

“ Tomlinson is not his name, but a certain modern English poet wrote about a Tomlinson who was just such a one as this rosy-cheeked young newspaper man who wot that he scale the midnight cliffs of Labrador even to the fringe of the aurora and who yammered at those malignantly adverse currents oS St. Paul’s isle in the cruel gateway of St. Lawrence gulf.
There was that air of mystery about Tomlinson evidenced even before the Dominion steamer sailed from her berth at Sydney, X. S., with her top-heavy supercargo of wild correspondents from the cities of the .Atlantic coast. ”

“ Tomlinson, formed when they were at school together, though my grandmother was much the older of the two. But there was no intimacy. The gulf that money sometimes makes between those who have it and those who lack it lay between them. Though I think my grandmother was more sensitive about crossing this gulf than Mrs. Tomlinson.
I was never in the Tomlinson house but once when a child. Whether it was because it was two or three miles away from Rockville, or whether it was because I stood in awe of my grandmother's Harriet Bledsoe, I do not know. ”

“ Undoubtedly he looked better already; his report of the Croydon business was very hopeful. What the shop wanted was just the energy and experience which he brought to it; why, Tomlinson admitted that the takings had already increased. ”

“ Chichester, can follow us at a little distance. It looks suspicious for three people to walk together."
"I really must decline—" began Tomlinson, trembling from head to foot, as the warning voice of Michael Martin seemed to ring in his ears.
"One word more, Mr. Tomlinson," said the Resurrection Man. "I am a person of determined spirit and resolution. I never stick at trifles myself; and I don't choose others, with whom I am connected, to balk me in my designs, when I can prevent them. ”

“ From France he returned, midway in the war, to join the men who, under the Command of H. W. Massingham, make the editorial staff of the London Nation the most brilliant company of journalists in the world. His hand may be traced week by week in many columns and especially, in alternate issues, on the page given up to the literary causerie.
To the readers of books Tomlinson is known at present by The Sea and the Jungle alone. The war, it may be, did something to retard its fame. ”