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Adams, Samuel Hopkins, 1871-1958

"The Unspeakable Perk"

The
Unspeakable Perk! As the name formed on her lips, she smiled
tenderly. With sad lack of logic, she was ready to discard every
suspicion of him that she had harbored, merely on the strength of
his reckless outbreak of patriotism. She looked about the patio,
but he was not there. Sherwen came out of a side door, his face
puckered with anxiety.
"Where is Mr. Perkins?" she asked.
"In there." He nodded back over his shoulder. "Your father is with
him. Perhaps you'd better go in."
With a chill at her heart, Polly entered the room, where Mr.
Brewster bent a troubled face over a head swathed in reddened
bandages.
Very crumpled and limp looked the Unspeakable Perk, bunched
humpily upon the little sofa. His goggles had fallen off, and lay
on the floor beside him, contriving somehow to look momentously
solemn and important all by themselves. His face was turned half
away, and, as Polly's gaze fell upon it, she felt again that queer
catch at her heart.
"Wouldn't know it was the same chap, would you?" whispered Mr.
Brewster.
The girl picked up the grotesque spectacles, cradling them for an
instant in her hands before she put them aside and leaned over the
quiet form.


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