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Adams, Samuel Hopkins, 1871-1958

"The Unspeakable Perk"

Leaning
over the rail, the visitor pointed through the leaves of a small
gallito tree to a broad-fronted building almost opposite.
"That is my club. You have other friends there who would do
anything for you, as I would, so gladly," he added wistfully.
"Will you honor me by accepting this little whistle? It is my
hunting-whistle. And if there should be anything--but I think
there will not--you will blow it, and there will be plenty to
answer. If not, you will keep it, please, to remember one who will
not forget you."
Handsome and elegant and courtly he was, a true chevalier of
adventurous pioneering stock, sprung from the old proud Spanish
blood, but there stole behind the girl's vision, as she bade him
farewell, the undesired phantasm of a very different face, weary
and lined and lighted by steadfast gray eyes--eyes that looked
truthful and belonged to a liar! Miss Polly Brewster resumed her
final packing in a fume of rage at herself.
All hands among the visitors passed the afternoon dully. Mr.
Brewster, who had finally yielded to persuasion and decided not to
venture out, though still deriding the restriction as the merest
nonsense, was in a mood of restless silence, which his
irrepressible daughter described to Fitzhugh Carroll as "the
superior sulks.


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