Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Walking-Stick Papers by Robert Cortes Holliday
page 90 of 198 (45%)
from over the sea.

"You are an American, sir," said the barmaid. She was a huge young
woman who could have punched my head in. I am not so delicate, either.
And she had a pug nose.

"I do not so much care for American ladies," she said. "I think they
are a bit hard, don't you?" Then, perhaps feeling that she may have
offended me, she quickly added: "Not of course that I doubt that there
are maidenlike ladies in America."

They are a curious people, these English, with their nice ideas, even
among barmaids, of the graces of a mellow society. For some time I
could not understand why she was so beautiful. Then I perceived that
it was because of her nose. She looked just like the goddesses of the
Elgin marbles, whose noses are broken, you know. Still I doubt whether
it would be a good idea for a man to break his wife's nose in order to
make her more beautiful.

I will grave her name here on the tablet of fame, so that when you go
again to London you may be able to see her. It is Elizabeth.

He was a cats' meat man. And on his arm he carried a basket in which
was a heap of bits of horse flesh (such I have been told it is), each
on a sliver of stick. There was a little dog playing about near by.
"Would you care to treat that dog to a ha'penny's worth of meat, sir?"
asked the man.

I had never before treated a dog to anything, though treating is an
American habit. So I "set up" the dog to a ha'penny's worth of meat.
DigitalOcean Referral Badge