bet the house

bet the house BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER III. (_Narwhale_), that is, _Nostril “Come, Jethro, Betty’ll carry her li’l white puppykins, pore li’l footsy’s so sore.”,The Aurora's boat was swept alongside the brig, and Captain Acton and the Admiral clambered over the side up a short flight of steps, and in an instant Lucy was clasped in the devouring embrace of her father. Such an old-world scene taxes the highest gifts of the pen or the brush. This Louisa Ann was about fifty years old; she was nearly as broad as she was long. Her fore-mast was stepped far in the bows; her decks were stained and grimy; the paint had faded out of the inside of her bulwarks. Her sails were patched and so dingy that they might have been coloured as a smack's. Her rusty sides were lined with yawning seams amid which three little circular windows were merged with no accentuation from the dirt-shrouded glass which prevented the sea from entering the blistered, worn, mani-coloured hull. Her sailors looked as though[Pg 359] they were shipwrecked: long-haired, bearded, sallow, in clothes considerably tattered, in aspect melancholy and dejected with lack of nourishment, dullness of sailing and ceaseless motion: for here was the tub wallowing like a buoy in a popple upon a smooth sea, and the frightful weather she would make off Cape Horn or in a gale of wind the imagination of a sailor could readily picture by witnessing her motions now.,"I put it as you do, though in different words," said Mr Eagle, "and he answered that Captain Acton's orders must be obeyed, that the crew's refusal would be mutiny, and that if they wouldn't work the ship to a port, where he could ship a fresh crew, he'd heave a-back the main-topsail yard and wait for a man-o'-war to come along.",CHAPTER XIV.,"I shall go away," declares Nolly; "I shall go aboard,—at least as far as the orchard;" then, with a complete change of tone, "By the by, Mrs. Geoffrey, will you come for a walk? Do: the day is 'heavenly fair.'"，"I do love her," cried David, vehemently. "I have always loved her, and shall continue to do so until the day of my death. All the same, I shall never become her husband."，“Oh, because I fought him; because his fishpole got smashed.”，"How can you describe her, when you have not seen her?"Just at this juncture the shed door was nosed softly open and a striped, furry animal rolled into the room like a ball and, raising himself on his hind legs, took the cookie from Erie's hand.

"He shall wait upon you at the stroke, sir.",He shook his head. "Not tonight, thanks. You're tired, and I've a long ride before me. Next time I come we'll have tea," he promised as he turned to shake hands with Landon.,"'A careless shoe-string in whose tie,Billy had been reeling off stanzas of his favorite “Lady of the Lake,”—“by the yard,” Mrs. Bennett said, acting it as he recited, somewhat retarding the work and endangering the dishes. Now he dropped his towel, caught up his mother and raced with her around the room. He was so strong that she was almost helpless in his grasp.,“If you only haven’t broken his wind, boy. Pretty risky—to ride him the way you have these last days.”,CHAPTER XI The Pet Horse,The captivating music of Grieg’s “Butterfly” floated through the room and Moses watched the white supple fingers of the player with breathless eagerness.,It was the place where the dam was to be built—where already part of it was built. From the height from which they looked the network of cables and railroad tracks and rushing ant-like figures, seemed a confused jumble without a sense of direction. But as the car coasted down the well-made road—also constructed by the Government, Bob learned later—the jumble became clearer. The cables, extending from one side of the hill to the other, carried buckets which rushed incessantly to and fro. These were lowered and hoisted seemingly by chance. The puffing engines pulled cars of rock to the crusher and backed away for new loads. The swarming men now showed themselves as workers, the directing units, and their rushing about was merely carrying out their part of the great work.,This information lighted up the wildest passions of his nature; his former sufferings faded away before the stronger influence of the present misfortune, and it seemed as if he had never tasted misery till now. To suspect the wife upon whom he doated with romantic fondness, on whom he had centered all his firmest hopes of happiness, and for whose sake he had committed the crime which embittered even his present moment, and which would involve him in still deeper guilt—to find her ungrateful to his love, and a traitoress to his honor—produced a misery more poignant than any his imagination had conceived. He was torn by contending passions, and opposite resolutions:—now he resolved to expiate her guilt with her blood—and now he melted in all the softness of love. Vengeance and honor bade him strike to the heart which had betrayed him, and urged him instantly to the deed—when the idea of her beauty—her winning smiles—her fond endearments stole upon his fancy, and subdued his heart; he almost wept to the idea of injuring her, and in spight of appearances, pronounced her faithful. The succeeding moment plunged him again into uncertainty; his tortures acquired new vigour from cessation, and again he experienced all the phrenzy of despair. He was now resolved to end his doubts by repairing to the pavilion; but again his heart wavered in irresolution how to proceed should his fears be confirmed. In the mean time he determined to watch the behaviour of Maria with severe vigilance.,"Over twenty, and most of the time I am so hungry I could eat Aunt Adeline. I dream about Billy, fried with cream gravy," I answered, as I kissed again the back of the head that was beginning to nod down against my breast. Long shadows lay across the garden, and the white-headed old snow-ball was signalling out of the dusk to a Dorothy Perkins rose down the walk in a scandalous way. At best, spring is just the world's match-making old chaperon, and ought to be watched. I still sat on the grass, and I began to cuddle Billy's bare knees in the skirt of my dress so the gnats couldn't get at them.,“They’re great frauds, those aristocratic cats of sister’s,” Billy explained; “not a bit of use. They won’t fight, and—”,"Mrs. Keeler's," his daughter answered. "Billy Wilson left the order.".