An Encore

An Encore

ACCORDING to Old Chester, to be romantic was just one shade less reprehensible than to put on airs. Captain Alfred Price, in all his seventy years, had never been guilty of putting on airs, but certainly he had something to answer for in the way of romance. However, in the days when we children used to see him pounding up the street from the post-office, reading, as he walked, a newspaper held at arms-length in front of him, he was far enough from romance. He was seventy years old, he weighed over[Page 2] two hundred pounds, his big head was covered with a shock of grizzled red hair; his pleasures consisted in polishing his old sextant and playing on a small mouth-harmonicon. As to his vices, it was no secret that he kept a fat black bottle in the chimney-closet in his own room, and occasionally he swore strange oaths about his grandmothers nightcap. He used to blaspheme, his daughter-in-law said; but I said, Not in my presence, if you please! So now he just says this foolish thing about a nightcap. Mrs. Drayton said that this reform would be one of the jewels in Mrs. Cyrus Prices crown; and added that she prayed that some day the Captain would give up tobacco and rum. I am a poor, feeble creature, said Mrs. Drayton; I cannot do much for my fellow-men in active mission-work,[Page 3]but I give my prayers. However, neither Mrs. Draytons prayers nor Mrs. Cyruss active mission-work had done more than mitigate the blasphemy; the rum (which was good Monongahela whiskey) was still on hand; and as for tobacco, except when sleeping, eating, playing on his harmonicon, or dozing through one of Dr. Lavendars sermons, the Captain smoked every moment, the ashes of his pipe or cigar falling unheeded on a vast and wrinkled expanse of waistcoat. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 29284
Author: Deland, Margaret Wade Campbell
Release Date: Jul 1, 2009
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Stephens, Alice Barber, 1858-1932