The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig; a Novel by David Graham Phillips
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page 5 of 308 (01%)
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of an Indian in full war-paint. Arkwright showed that he had
physical strength, too; but it was of the kind got at the gymnasium and at gentlemanly sport--the kind that wins only where the rules are carefully refined and amateurized. Craig's figure had the solidity, the tough fiber of things grown in the open air, in the cold, wet hardship of the wilderness. Arkwright's first glance of admiration for this figure of the forest and the teepee changed to a mingling of amusement and irritation. The barbarian was not clad in the skins of wild beasts, which would have set him off superbly, but was trying to get himself arrayed for a fashionable ball. He had on evening trousers, pumps, black cotton socks with just enough silk woven in to give them the shabby, shamed air of having been caught in a snobbish pretense at being silk. He was buttoning a shirt torn straight down the left side of the bosom from collar-band to end of tail; and the bosom had the stiff, glassy glaze that advertises the cheap laundry. "Didn't you write me I must get an apartment in this house?" demanded he. "Not in the attic," rejoined Arkwright. "I can't afford anything better." "You can't afford anything so bad." "Bad!" |
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