The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton — Part 1 by Edith Wharton
page 70 of 177 (39%)
page 70 of 177 (39%)
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spluttered and strangled with it. He had just had the Italian up
and had sacked him on the spot, without wages or character--had threatened to have him arrested if he was ever caught prowling about Wrenfield. 'By God, and I'll do it--I'll write to Washington--I'll have the pauper scoundrel deported! I'll show him what money can do!' As likely as not there was some murderous Black-hand business under it--it would be found that the fellow was a member of a 'gang.' Those Italians would murder you for a quarter. He meant to have the police look into it. . . And then he grew frightened at his own excitement. 'But I must calm myself,' he said. He took his temperature, rang for his drops, and turned to the Churchman. He had been reading an article on Nestorianism when the melon was brought in. He asked me to go on with it, and I read to him for an hour, in the dim close room, with a fat fly buzzing stealthily about the fallen melon. "All the while one phrase of the old man's buzzed in my brain like the fly about the melon. 'I'LL SHOW HIM WHAT MONEY CAN DO!' Good heaven! If I could but show the old man! If I could make him see his power of giving happiness as a new outlet for his monstrous egotism! I tried to tell him something about my situation and Kate's--spoke of my ill-health, my unsuccessful drudgery, my longing to write, to make myself a name--I stammered out an entreaty for a loan. 'I can guarantee to repay you, sir-- I've a half-written play as security. . .' "I shall never forget his glassy stare. His face had grown as smooth as an egg-shell again--his eyes peered over his fat cheeks like sentinels over a slippery rampart. |
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