The Portygee by Joseph Crosby Lincoln
page 32 of 474 (06%)
page 32 of 474 (06%)
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play-actin' men and women hollered and screamed to music for a couple
of hours." Olive, his wife, had attended an opera once and, according to her, it was more like a cat fight than anything else. Nobody but foreigners ever had anything to do with operas. And for foreigners of all kinds--but the Latin variety of foreigner in particular--Captain Zelotes Snow cherished a detest which was almost fanatic. And now his daughter, his own Janie, was receiving ardent love letters from a play-acting foreigner, a Spaniard, a "Portygee," a "macaroni-eater"! When finally convinced that it was true, that the letters had really been written to Jane, which took some time, he demanded first of all to be shown the "Portygee." Miss Donaldson could not, of course, produce the latter forthwith, but she directed her irate visitor to the theater where the opera company was then performing. To the theater Captain Zelotes went. He did not find Speranza there, but from a frightened attendant he browbeat the information that the singer was staying at a certain hotel. So the captain went to the hotel. It was eleven o'clock in the morning, Senor Speranza was in bed and could not be disturbed. Couldn't, eh? By the great and everlasting et cetera and continued he was going to be disturbed then and there. And unless some of the hotel's "hired help" set about the disturbing it would be done for them. So, rather than summon the police, the hotel management summoned its guest, and the first, and only, interview between the father and lover of Jane Snow took place. It was not a long interview, but it was spirited. Captain Zelotes began by being what he considered diplomatic. Having assured his wife before leaving home, and the alarmed Miss Donaldson subsequently, that there was to be no trouble whatever--everything would be settled as smooth and easy as slidin' downhill; "that feller won't make any fuss, you'll |
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