Flutter Entertainment

Flutter Entertainment Original publication: New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor “They’ll have to be done before vacation or not at all,” he answered, so seriously that May Nell wondered a little; wondered still more as the moments passed and the dark room grew very quiet. She did not know what purpose was growing in Billy’s mind, a purpose that largely concerned herself.,"But you couldn't fondle a pig on your knees," says Mona, who is growing every minute more and more mixed.,"What is it you would say?" exclaims Mona, threatingly, turning towards him a lovely face she vainly tries to clothe with anger.,At the door of the Crump household, Moses stood before the daughter of the house who answered the bell, burning hot with the fever of an overwhelming embarrassment. His body glowed so that steam might have been seen arising from his dripping garments. He almost yearned for incarceration in an ice-house. His personal pulchritude had not been enhanced by the experience and the critical eyes of the young girl failed to express any degree of admiration or sympathy. More than ever Moses longed for the encircling arms of Betty.,Major Jen's calls for least. His face was round and red, with a terrific blonde mustache fiercely curled. He had merry blue eyes, sparse hair, more than touched with gray, and an expression of good-humor which was the index to his character. Man, woman and child trusted Jen on the spot, nor was it ever said that such trust was misplaced. Even the most censorious could find no fault with the frank and kindly major, and he had more friends and more pensioners and fewer enemies than any man in the shire. Can any further explanation be required of so simple and easily understood a character?，"Gosh! you ain't got no nerve a'tall, Maurice! It's only a milk-snake. I picked it up on my way home from the store. I'm goin' to put it in the menagerie."，“But—but nobody’s ever gone through alive,” stammered the man. “I’ve always wanted to try it myself but never found the chance. How did you do it?”，"Upon my word, Acton," said the Admiral, "you have just put into words the fancies I have had whilst I have been conversing with Miss Acton. The old spirit will speak in a man, the old love will grow eloquent once again at the suggestion that quickens it into[Pg 109] bright memory: and whilst I have been talking to you, I have in imagination paced the starboard side of the quarterdeck, which we will call the weather side; this harbour, these wharves, the Old Town have disappeared, and I am surrounded by a wide ocean in the heart of which this little ship is rushing, streaming her wake like a comet's tail, bursting the surge in rainbow-like arches for her progress, filling the air with the music of shroud and back-stay, and lightening the heart with a sense of freedom which the sea alone can give, and which used to visit me like a sense of gratitude or rejoicing as though something had been given to me that was gracious, beautiful, and rare."The gallant old officer paused and looked at his son, and any one could have easily seen that he was equally moved by pain and pride. Indeed the man who sat opposite to him was one who by manly beauty of face, worn as it was by weather and excess, by vigorous bearing of shapely person, and by a story which, brief as it was, was as full of the stars of gallant deeds as a short scope of wake is[Pg 57] alive with the brilliant pulses of the sea-glow, was one, let it be repeated, whom many a father's heart would rejoice in, and approve of, bitterly as it must deplore those lamentable, if fashionable, weaknesses, gambling and a love of what Dibdin calls the "flowing can."

"Miss Dallas!" said Etwald, in no wise moved by this speech.,“Did you forget their breakfast, Billy?” the child questioned earnestly.,"An' phwat is ut?" Old Harry's interest was real. He laid his pipe down on the table and leaned towards Billy.,"Nice boys don't fight." Billy shifted his feet uneasily, the movement bringing him a step or two closer to the other.,He glanced at the door. Mrs. Keeler's square form interposed itself staunchly between him and that means of exit. His wild eyes strayed to the face of his chum. Maurice was grinning a glad, if swollen, grin. There was nothing to do but face the music.,"I know that," cried the Admiral. "But whatever the sum, it is good money and honestly earned, made not as you could make it in this place, and better a hundred pounds gained by toil which a man's conscience approves and applauds, than one hundred thousand fetched from the pockets of others by the crime of gambling.","When I bring you to my home," says Geoffrey, "I shall have you painted just in that gown, and with a spinning-wheel before you; and it shall be hung in the gallery among the other—very inferior—beauties.",Nell Gordon’s eyes were wet with something else than mirth when Betty entered the house later with her pet in her arms. She had heard of the assault upon the innocent Moses and Jethro and resolved to assist mightily in the smiting of the Philistines. She also held a private consultation with her purse and decided to send off at once to a popular mail-order house for a pair of trousers for Moses of a distinctly different cut from those that had been his undoing.,Patricia caught her breath. "I hope he likes the next one," she said anxiously, whereat Griffin chuckled.,Erie was waving to him from the kitchen door. "Where's Maurice?" she called.,Moses, his feelings by this time wrought to a state of down-right rebellion, grasped a pail in either hand and sought the peaceful atmosphere of the river.,She rounded from the bulkhead as she pronounced these words. Her eyes seemed to be on fire; her cheeks glowed. Again she bared her teeth in her wild, insane grin. She appeared transformed. He knew that certain violent and heart-changing passions and emotions could so work in a beautiful face as to make it look repulsive and devilish, such as jealousy or criminal insult, but he never could have believed of Lucy Acton that her loveliness could undergo the amazing transformation he witnessed; for he did not think to recall that her mother had been a great[Pg 261] actress, and that this girl might have inherited perhaps the finest side of her genius..