TwoThanksgivingDayGentlemen--part3
Two ThanksgivingDay Gentlemen--part3
Stuffy Pete looked up at him for a half minute, stewing and helpless in his own self-pity. The Old Gentleman’s eyes were bright with the giving-pleasure. His face was getting more lined each year, but his little black necktie was in as jaunty a bow as ever, and the linen was beautiful and white, and his gray mustache was curled carefully at the ends. And then Stuffy made a noise that sounded like peas bubbling in a pot. Speech was intended; and as the Old Gentleman had heard the sounds nine times before, he rightly construed them into Stuffy’s old formula of acceptance.
“Thankee, sir. I’ll go with ye, and much obliged. I’m very hungry, sir.” The coma of repletion had not prevented from entering Stuffy’s mind the conviction that he was the basis of an Institution. His Thanksgiving appetite was not his own; it belonged by all the sacred rights of established custom, if not, by the actual Statute of Limitations, to this kind old gentleman who had preempted it. True, America is free; but in order to establish tradition some one must be a repetend—a repeating decimal. The heroes are not all heroes of steel and gold.
See one here that wielded only weapons of iron, badly silvered, and tin. The Old Gentleman led his annual protege southward to the restaurant, and to the table where the feast had always occurred. They were recognized. “Here comes de old guy,” said a waiter, “dat blows dat same bum to a meal every Thanksgiving.” The Old Gentleman sat across the table glowing like a smoked pearl at his corner-stone of future ancient Tradition. The waiters heaped the table with holiday food—and Stuffy, with a sigh that was mistaken for hunger’s expression, raised knife and fork and carved for himself a crown of imperishable bay.
No more valiant hero ever fought his way through the ranks of an enemy. Turkey, chops, soups, vegetables, pies, disappeared before him as fast as they could be served. Gorged nearly to the uttermost when he entered the restaurant, the smell of food had almost caused him to lose his honor as a gentleman, but he rallied like a true knight. He saw the look of beneficent happiness on the Old Gentleman’s face—a happier look than even the fuchsias and the ornithoptera amphrisius had ever brought to it—and he had not the heart to see it wane. In an hour Stuffy leaned back with a battle won. “Thankee kindly, sir,” he puffed like a leaky steam pipe; “thankee kindly for a hearty meal.” Then he arose heavily with glazed eyes and started toward the kitchen.
A waiter turned him about like a top, and pointed him toward the door. The Old Gentleman carefully counted out $1.30 in silver change, leaving three nickels for the waiter.
They parted as they did each year at the door, the Old Gentleman going south, Stuffy north. round the first corner Stuffy turned, and stood for one minute. hen he seemed to puff out his rags as an owl puffs out his feathers, and fell to the sidewalk like a sunstricken horse. hen the ambulance came the young surgeon and the driver cursed softly at his weight. There was no smell of whiskey to justify a transfer to the patrol wagon, so Stuffy and his two dinners went to the hospital. There they stretched him on a bed and began to test him for strange diseases, with the hope of getting a chance at some problem with the bare steel. And lo! an hour later another ambulance brought the Old Gentleman. And they laid him on another bed and spoke of appendicitis, for he looked good for the bill. But pretty soon one of the young doctors met one of the young nurses whose eyes he liked, and stopped to chat with her about the cases. “That nice old gentleman over there, now,” he said, “you wouldn’t think that was a case of almost starvation. Proud old family, I guess. He told me he hadn’t eaten a thing for three days.”
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