The Maker of Opportunities

The Maker of Opportunities

It was two oclock. Mr. Mortimer Crabb pushed back the chair from his breakfast tray and languidly took up the morning paper. He had a reputation (in which he delighted) of dwelling in a Castle of Indolence, and took particular pains that no act of his should belie it. There were persons who smiled at his affectations, for he had a studio over a stable in one of the cross streets up town, where he dawdled most of his days, supine in his easy chair. The age was running to athletics, so Mr. Crabb in public had become the apostle and high priest of flaccidity. He raised a supercilious eyebrow at tennis, drawled his disparagement of polo and racquets and recoiled at the mere[2] mention of college football. But those highest in Crabbs favor knew that there were evenings when he met professional pugilists at this same shrine of stheticism, who, at liberal compensation, matched their skill and heft to his. Nor was he a mean antagonist in conversation. For Mr. Crabb had a slow and rather halting way of making the most trenchantly witty remarks, and a style exactly suited to the successful dinner table. And when a satiated society demanded something new it was to Crabb they turned for a suggestion. Mrs. Ryersons Gainsborough ball, Jack Burrows remarkable ushers dinner, and the pet-dog tea at Mrs. Jennings country place were fantasies of the mind of this Prester John of the effete. When to these remarkable talents is added a yacht and a hundred and fifty thousand a year, it is readily to be seen that Mr. Mortimer Crabb was a person of consequence, even in New York. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 38702
Author: Gibbs, George
Release Date: Jan 28, 2012
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Frederick, Edmund, 1870-1949