"I wouldn't walk across the street to see him," said a shabby individual, helping himself to a cracker.
"He's no better than any other man," said the bar-boy.
"I wouldn't look at him if they brought him in to me," announced an aggressive-looking character.
Now this was a remark rich in pictorial suggestion. It was eloquent with dramatic evocation. One instantly imagines the striking scene; the duke is dragged in; the aggressive-looking character is called upon to look at him; this he refuses to do.
"He breathes the same kind of air we do, don't he?" pointedly inquired the shabby individual.
"I guess that's right enough, too!" exclaimed the bar-boy.
XXVII
CONNUBIAL FELICITY
I'VE got a fine wife, too. I tell you, Bob, there's nothin' better can happen to a feller than to get the right woman. I don't care for battin' around any more now. Nothin' I like any better than to go home to my flat at night, take off my shoes and put on my slippers, and listen to my wife play the piano. My wife is musical, vocal and instrumental. Her vocal is on a par with her instrumental. I like music. I always said if ever I got married I'd marry, a wife that was musical. I ain't educated in music, exactly, but I've an ear. A feller told me,—Doc. Hoff, a mighty smart man, I'd like you to know him, his talk sometimes it would take a college professor to understand it,—he says to me, "I'm no phrenologist but I can see you've got an ear for music."
My wife is an aristocrat. When I married her, Thunder! I had no polish, that is to speak of. You know that, Bob. My talk was the vernacular. My wife's an Episcopalian. She asked me if I had any objection to the Episcopal ceremony for marrying. I said I didn't have no religion; anything would suit me so long as it was legal. I had fifteen hundred dollars to the good. I don't know how I come to have it. I oughtn't to have, by rights. Some of these book makers ought to have had it, accordin' to the life I led. But I did have it, anyhow. I took three hundred dollars and got a sweet of drawing room furniture—Louie fourteenth, or fifteenth, they call it, I forget which. Then I got a mahogany table, solid parts through, for our dining room, and some what they call Chippendale chairs. I got a darn good library up there, too.