The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel eBook

Though Washington Flagg had first opened his eyes on the banks of the Penobscot, he appeared to have been planned by nature to adorn the banks of the Rappahannock.  There was nothing of the New Englander about him.  The sallowness of his complexion and the blackness of his straight hair, which he wore long, were those of the typical Southerner.  He was of medium height and loosely built, with a kind of elastic grace in his disjointedness.  When he smiled he was positively handsome; in repose his features were nearly plain, the lips too indecisive, and the eyes lacking in lustre.  A sparse tuft of beard at his chin—­he was otherwise smoothly shaven—­lengthened the face.  There was, when he willed it, something very ingratiating in his manner—­even Clara admitted that—­a courteous and unconventional sort of ease.  In all these surface characteristics he was a geographical anomaly.  In the cast of his mind he was more Southern than the South, as a Northern convert is apt to be.  Even his speech, like the dyer’s arm, had taken tints from his environment.  One might say that his pronunciation had literally been colored by his long association with the colored race.  He invariably said flo’ for floor, and djew for dew; but I do not anywhere attempt a phonetic reproduction of his dialect; in its finer qualities it was too elusive to be snared in a network of letters.  In spite of his displacements, for my cousin had lived all over the South in his boyhood, he had contrived to pick up a very decent education.  As to his other attributes, he shall be left to reveal them himself.

III

Mrs. Wesley kindly assumed the charge of establishing Washington Flagg in his headquarters, as he termed the snug hall bedroom in Macdougal Street.  There were numberless details to be looked to.  His wardrobe, among the rest, needed replenishing down to the most unconsidered button, for Flagg had dropped into our little world with as few impedimenta as if he had been a newly born infant.  Though my condition, like that desired by Agur, the son of Jakeh, was one of neither poverty nor riches, greenbacks in those days were greenbacks.  I mention the fact in order to say that my satisfaction in coming to the rescue of my kinsman would have been greatly lessened if it had involved no self-denial whatever.

The day following his installation I was partly annoyed, partly amused, to find that Flagg had purchased a rather expensive meerschaum pipe and a pound or two of Latakia tobacco.

“I cannot afford to smoke cigars,” he explained.  “I must economize until I get on my feet.”

Perhaps it would have been wiser if I had personally attended to his expenditures, minor as well as major, but it did not seem practicable to leave him without a cent in his pocket.  His pilgrimage down town that forenoon had apparently had no purpose beyond this purchase, though on the previous evening I had directed his notice to two or three commercial advertisements which impressed me as worth looking into.  I hesitated to ask him if he had looked into them.  A collateral feeling of delicacy prevented me from breathing a word to Clara about the pipe.