The Red One by Jack London
page 39 of 140 (27%)
page 39 of 140 (27%)
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fastened herself to his arm with the accuracy and dispatch and
inevitableness of a piece of machinery. "There you go!" she shrilled. "A-trottin' right off and never givin' me a thought." I was formally introduced to her. It was patent that she had never heard of me, and she surveyed me bleakly with shrewd black eyes, set close together and as beady and restless as a bird's. "You ain't goin' to tell him about that hussy?" she complained. "Well, now, Sarah, this is business, you see," he argued plaintively. "I've been lookin' for a likely man this long while, and now that he's shown up it seems to me I got a right to give him the hang of what happened." The small woman made no reply, but set her thin lips in a needle- like line. She gazed straight before her at the Tower of Jewels with so austere an expression that no glint of refracted sunlight could soften it. We proceeded slowly to the lagoon, managed to obtain an unoccupied seat, and sat down with mutual sighs of relief as we released our weights from our tortured sightseeing feet. "One does get so mortal weary," asserted the small woman, almost defiantly. Two swans waddled up from the mirroring water and investigated us. When their suspicions of our niggardliness or lack of peanuts had been confirmed, Jones half-turned his back on his life-partner and |
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