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Literary Lapses by Stephen Leacock
page 82 of 192 (42%)
without a sigh.

"The happiness of Fifty-Six seemed to enter into and fill
my whole life. I lived but from Saturday to Saturday.
The appearance of false shirt-fronts would cast me to
the lowest depths of despair; their absence raised me to
a pinnacle of hope. It was not till winter softened into
spring that Fifty-Six nerved himself to learn his fate.
One Saturday he sent me a new white waistcoat, a garment
which had hitherto been shunned by his modest nature, to
prepare for his use. I bestowed upon it all the resources
of my art; I read his purpose in it. On the Saturday
following it was returned to me and, with tears of joy,
I marked where a warm little hand had rested fondly on
the right shoulder, and knew that Fifty-Six was the
accepted lover of his sweetheart."

Ah-Yen paused and sat for some time silent; his pipe had
sputtered out and lay cold in the hollow of his hand;
his eye was fixed upon the wall where the light and
shadows shifted in the dull flickering of the candle. At
last he spoke again:

"I will not dwell upon the happy days that ensued--days
of gaudy summer neckties and white waistcoats, of spotless
shirts and lofty collars worn but a single day by the
fastidious lover. Our happiness seemed complete and I
asked no more from fate. Alas! it was not destined to
continue! When the bright days of summer were fading into
autumn, I was grieved to notice an occasional quarrel--only
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