Peter: a novel of which he is not the hero by Francis Hopkinson Smith
page 25 of 474 (05%)
page 25 of 474 (05%)
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"Isn't it glorious, Holker!" he cried joyously, with uplifted
hands. "Oh, I'm so glad I came! I wouldn't have missed this for anything in the world. Did you ever see anything like it? This is classic, my boy--it has the tang and the spice of the ancients." Morris's greeting to me was none the less hearty, although he had left me but half an hour before. "Late, as I expected, Major," he cried with out-stretched hand, "and serves you right for not sitting in Peter's lap in the cab. Somebody ought to sit on him once in a while. He's twenty years younger already. Here, take this seat alongside of me where you can keep him in order--they were at table when I entered. Waiter, bring back that bottle--Just a light claret, Major--all we allow ourselves." As the evening wore away the charm of the room grew upon me. Vistas hazy with tobacco smoke opened up; the ceiling lost in the fog gave one the impression of out-of-doors--like a roof-garden at night; a delusion made all the more real by the happy uproar. And then the touches here and there by men whose life had been the study of color and effects; the appointments of the table, the massing of flowers relieving the white cloth; the placing of shaded candles, so that only a rosy glow filtered through the loom, softening the light on the happy faces--each scalp crowned with chaplets of laurel tied with red ribbons: an enchantment of color, form and light where but an hour before only the practical and the commonplace had held sway. No vestige of the business side of the offices remained. Peter |
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