By
Booth Tarkington
Author of Penrod, Penrod and
Sam,
the turmoil, etc.
Illustrated by
C. Allan Gilbert
and
worth Brehm
Grosset & Dunlap
publishers new York
Made in the United States of America
* * * *
*
Copyright, 1922, by
Doubleday, page & company
all rights reserved
Copyright, 1918, by P. F. Collier and
son company
copyright, 1919, by the pictorial
review company
Printed in the United states
at
the country life press, garden
city, N. Y.
* * * *
*
To M. L. K.
* * * *
*
“Rising to the point of order, this one said
that since the morgue was not yet established as the
central monument and inspiration of our settlement,
and true philosophy was as well expounded in the convivial
manner as in the miserable, he claimed for himself,
not the license, but the right, to sing a ballad,
if he chose, upon even so solemn a matter as the misuse
of the town pump by witches.”
* * * *
*
Superciliousness is not safe after all, because a
person who forms the habit of wearing it may some
day find his lower lip grown permanently projected
beyond the upper, so that he can’t get it back,
and must go through life looking like the King of
Spain. This was once foretold as a probable culmination
of Florence Atwater’s still plastic profile,
if Florence didn’t change her way of thinking;
and upon Florence’s remarking dreamily that
the King of Spain was an awf’ly han’some
man, her mother retorted: “But not for
a girl!” She meant, of course, that a girl who
looked too much like the King of Spain would not be
handsome, but her daughter decided to misunderstand
her.
“Why, mamma, he’s my Very Ideal!
I’d marry him to-morrow!”
Mrs. Atwater paused in her darning, and let the stocking
collapse flaccidly into the work-basket in her lap.
“Not at barely thirteen, would you?” she
said. “It seems to me you’re just
a shade too young to be marrying a man who’s
already got a wife and several children. Where
did you pick up that ‘I’d-marry-him-to-morrow,’
Florence?”
“Oh, I hear that everywhere!” returned
the damsel, lightly. “Everybody says things
like that. I heard Aunt Julia say it. I heard
Kitty Silver say it.”
