Monstrilio summary

Monstrilio summary Download +88K Through the Stygian darkness of the loft loomed the figure of Mrs. Wopp, a white apron of huge dimensions indicating her presence. She made as though to descend the ladder.,“Well I only go ’way about onct in a blue moon,” declared Mrs. Wopp, “an’ I feel so unsartin ’bout everything. Here we are a pack of Gadarene swine goin’ orff to a great city to eat husks I s’pose like the prodigal son. Never mind Ebenezer we’ll come back right glad I’ll bet to the fatted calf.” She pinched his ear in an elephantine playfulness as though he might be the fatted calf himself.,CHAPTER XIII THE HIDDEN HUT,Mannel Rodd’s round face was very solemn as in two chubby fists he held out a small box containing a number of short knobby specimens.,Here Mrs. Wopp related for the hundredth time the account of the ketchup disaster.，A faint sound caught his ear, as of clinking coins and soft voices. People there! He had thought it before, now he was certain. Were not both brothers away?，“Yes, he can do that; I’ve seen him myself.”，“Well, time is near up younguns; has any one a question to arsk?”“Wot fer? You girls is alius thinkin’ o’ money.” Moses clinked the nickels in his pocket with the air of a Vanderfeller. Betty’s voice became wheedling.

Involved and intricate variations of “Holy smoke!” made the air sulphureous as a swaying piece of wire caught his shoulder and tore a large gash in his shirt.,Zalhambra was a vaudeville artist. His was the star act on each bill. He was undeniably a genius; it needed but a few bars of fortissimo plus crescendo to realize that he was a virtuoso of the first rank. When he played a Rag the audience shouted with delight; but when he sprinkled torrential cadenzas through the dizzying syncopation, like some mighty giant tossing meteors into a handful of fire-crackers, something like an electric shock stirred his hearers.,“The Sheriff tells me a thousand dollars will be paid to your account as soon as the State settles, Billy. Here’s something else for you.”,Mrs. Mifsud had entered the room in time to hear the last remark. Owing to the paucity of minds as keenly intellectual as her own, Mrs. Mifsud always tried to keep her remarks to a suitable level so that all present might comprehend her language. The heights, alas! must be scaled by her alone. While willing to acknowledge the substantial character of Mrs. Wopp, she considered her sadly deficient in grammar and social graces. She now interposed.,During Betty’s illness these one-sided dialogues were more than usually plentiful. In this way only was Mrs. Wopp able to alleviate the “gnawin’ at her heart-strings” as she said, at having Betty so ill. It also kept the boy alive to the fact that life’s path was not strewn with “cabbage roses.” Such, at least, were the confidences poured into the sympathetic ear of his pinto.,“Good dog! I understand you, Bouncer, and I’m not lonesome any more.”,“What song would you like, Betty?”,“Now, Clarence, recite William Tell for us.” Mrs. Crump put her hand on her son’s shoulder and turned him away from the bookcase which had been serving as a screen for the boy’s laughing countenance, “You must help Moses enjoy his visit.”,Jethro, lying on a mat at the door, was contentedly gnawing a bone. Nancy, having finished her milk, and still enjoying its flavor from her whiskers, as Betty remarked, stealthily approached her canine playmate. A slight altercation took place concerning the ownership of the bone. It was not long before Jethro walked out of the room, perceptibly toeing in, and probably reflecting that life was too short to wrangle over a bare bone anyway.,“No; well,” came the answer.,A period of silence followed excepting for the slight sounds made by the workers, the drowsy humming of flies, the murmur of an occasional bee and the faint rustlings of the tall stalks of corn.,Mrs. Wopp had a request from Mrs. Williams. She, the requestor, was ill with a touch of “pewmonia,” as Mrs. Wopp afterward related, and would Mrs. Wopp the requestee oblige by taking her Sunday-school class for the following Sunday afternoon..