THE FROZEN HEIGHTS

Elam was the main Whizzer in a huddle of Queen Annes, bounded on the
North by a gleaming Cemetery, on the East by a limping subdivision, on
the South by a deserted Creamery, and on the West by an expanse of
Stubble.

Claudine was the other two-thirds of the Specialty.

She was a snappy little Trick and it was a dull hour of the Day or
Night when she couldn't frame up a new General Order for the
Breadwinner.

The Marriage came off during the third summer of her twenty-seventh
year.

She accepted Elam about a week before he proposed to her, thus
simplifying the Ordeal.

While the Wafer on the License was still warm, she put on her spangled
Suit, moved to the centre of the Ring, and cracked the Whip.

After that Elam continued to be a Hellion around the Office, but in
his private Quarters he was merely Otto, the Trained Seal.

Claudine could make him Bark, play the Cymbals, or go back to the Blue
Bench.

There is one Elam in every Settlement.

All the wise Paper-hangers and the fly Guitar Players had him marked
up as a Noodle, but somehow, every time the winning Numbers were hung
out, he would be found in Line, waiting to Cash.

He was not Bright enough to do anything except garner the Gold
Certificates.

Elam had no Ear for Music, and, coming out of the Opera House, never
could remember the name of the Play or which one of the Burglars was
the real Hero.

His Reading was confined to the Headlines of a conservative Paper
which was still printing War News.

Baseball had not come into his Life whatsoever.

A cultured Steno, who knew about George Meredith and Arnold Bennett,
had to do his Spelling for him at 14 Bucks per.

The Cerebellum of Elam was probably about the dimensions of a Malaga
Grape.

Sizing him by his Looks, one would have opined that Nature meant him
for a Ticket-taker in a suburban Cinema Palace.

Elam was a mental Gnat and a spiritual Microbe, but the Geezer knew
how to annex the Kale.

When Providence is directing the Hand-outs, she very often slips some
Squarehead the canny Gift of corraling the Cush, but holds out all of
the desirable Attributes supposed to distinguish Man from what you see
in the Cages at the Zoo.

After the Pater had earned his Shaft in the Cemetery, Elam became the
Loud Noise around a dinky Manufacturing Plant down by the Yards.

The Cracker Barrel Coterie and all the Old Ladies who had become
muscle-bound from wielding the Sledge pre