ट्रेडिंगगेम

ट्रेडिंगगेम POTATO STEW. (Poor Man’s Bill of Fare.) Going home from school one Friday afternoon, Moses heard sniggering half-suppressed comments behind him. He walked along slowly, contemplating his big toe that protruded pathetically from a large hole in his shoe. It reached his ears that one aesthetic youth was dazzled by the kaleidoscopic effect of his checked trousers; in other words, it made him sea-sick. Moses quickened his pace slightly, but his face looked like an advance notice of calamity. Presently he turned and glowered at his tormenters.,He was on deck early in the morning. Daybreak had turned ashen the surface of the sea. The wind was a steady breeze, and the Minorca crowded with every cloth she carried saving her stun-sails, plunged, and pitched, and frothed, and foamed in prodigious fine style as she was swept onwards by the wind that was a point abaft the beam. The sun rose in wet pink splendour on the larboard quarter, and by his light, which threw out the sea-line like the crystal rim of a tumbler against the heavens which were full of travelling clouds, Mr Lawrence swept with his glass the whole brimming circle. There was nothing in sight.,While light bounding our spirits shall flow;,Well satisfied with his deed, he returned and lay down beside his wife. As soon as Little Thumbling heard the ogre snoring, he awoke his brothers, and bade them dress themselves quickly and follow him. They crept down into the garden and jumped over the wall. They ran nearly all night long, trembling the whole time, and not knowing whither they were going. The ogre, awaking in the morning, said to his wife, "Go upstairs and dress those young scamps you took in last night." The ogress was astonished at her husband's kindness, never guessing what he meant, and only fancying that he wished her to go and put on their clothes. She went upstairs, where she was horrified to find that her own children had been killed. The first thing she did was to faint, for it is the first thing that almost all women do in similar circumstances. The ogre, fearing that his wife would be too long over the job he had given her to do, went upstairs to help her. His surprise was not less than had been his wife's, when his eyes fell on the frightful spectacle.,"There's the old Canopus!" cried the Admiral. "Lord, what a shivering [Pg 398]recollection I have of her main topmast cross-trees!"，She is very sweet to look at, and attractive and lovable.，"Why, sir," answered the Admiral, "I don't see that we should be late if we did not go at all."，"Why need you go until after Christmas?" she says, in a tone so low that he can barely hear her."It won't trouble us, not a bit," says Mrs. Geoffrey, rising with alacrity. "I shall love it, the floor is so nice and slippery. Can any one whistle?"

Then, his master still remaining blind to the wealth of treasure disclosed to him, Croaker spread his wings and sailed away over the pine-tops. Billy, despair in his heart, followed. All fear of the supernatural was gone from him now, crowded out by bitter disappointment at his failure to find the hidden gold. He passed close beside the haunted house without so much as a thought of the ghost of the man who had owned it and on through the silent pines and shadowy, grave-yard silence.,Elinor nodded mutely and clasped Patricia's two hands in her own. Bruce took Patricia's other hand in his strong, warm grasp and the three stood for a silent second as much apart from the gay, noisy scene as though a curtain had dropped between them.,She now perceived that the key of the closet was stained with blood; she wiped it two or three times, but the blood would not come off. In vain she washed it, and even scrubbed it with sand and free-stone, the stain was still there, for the key was an enchanted one, and there were no means of cleaning it completely; when the blood was washed off one side, it came back on the other.,She broke off suddenly at the swift remembrance of that futile search for health that had led the gentle Mrs. Carson to her grave in far-away Florence. She caught his hand under the table in a quick squeeze, while Elinor hurried into comparisons that claimed Judith's and Tom's close attention.,"You never saw an angel, so you can't say," says Mona, still sadly severe. "And I am unhappy. How will your mother, Mrs. Rodney, like your marrying me, when you might marry so many other people,—that Miss Mansergh, for instance?","I am afraid of her; I was never so afraid of any one before. I have made it the business of my life to avoid her ever since last New Year's Day, when some kind fellow told me it was leap-year. You know I never yet said 'No' to any one, and I shouldn't dare begin by saying it to Miss Cheviot. She has such a stony glare, and such a profusion of nose!",Cobin Keeler, who was playing a game of checkers with Billy's father, cleared his throat and leaned forward like a judge on the bench, waiting for the answer to his neighbor's question.,Elinor interrupted her with a little shake. "You hopeless little goose," she said, in laughing despair. "You've just promised me not to, and here you are it, hammer and tongs, under my very eyes.",Hinter held out his hand. "Well, good night, Miss Erie," he said. "I'll be up again soon, with some books for you.","You will be near too, Geoffrey?" murmurs Mona, falteringly.,“Yes, what do you mean?” said one of the men threateningly.,"Yes, I read the report of the inquest, and I have heard rumors. I agree with you, major, that Mr. Alymer was killed by the poison of the devil-stick. Go on.".