The raiment of Marco and his wife was of coarse tow-linen and
linsey-woolsey respectively, and resembled township maps, it being
made up pretty exclusively of patches which had been added, township
by township, in the course of five or six years, until hardly a
hand's-breadth of the original garments was surviving and present.
Now I wanted to fit these people out with new suits, on account of
that swell company, and I didn't know just how to get at it
--with delicacy, until at last it struck me that as I had already
been liberal in inventing wordy gratitude for the king, it would
be just the thing to back it up with evidence of a substantial
sort; so I said:
"And Marco, there's another thing which you must permit--out of
kindness for Jones--because you wouldn't want to offend him.
He was very anxious to testify his appreciation in some way, but
he is so diffident he couldn't venture it himself, and so he begged
me to buy some little things and give them to you and Dame Phyllis
and let him pay for them without your ever knowing they came from
him--you know how a delicate person feels about that sort of thing
--and so I said I would, and we would keep mum. Well, his idea
was, a new outfit of clothes for you both--"
"Oh, it is wastefulness! It may not be, brother, it may not be.
Consider the vastness of the sum--"
"Hang the vastness of the sum! Try to keep quiet for a moment,
and see how it would seem; a body can't get in a word edgeways,
you talk so much.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313