FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109  
110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   >>  
e, to himself with his other hand, and then shake his head. The men began to look at him and wonder what he meant. Then this man would count again--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Then, when the men would waddle by in their great gum-boots and look back at him over their beards, he would look them square in the face and wink, and screw and shrug his shoulders. This man stopped there in the middle of the spree, and pursing his brow, and holding up his fingers once more, and looking as profound as if wrestling with a problem in Euclid, said to himself: "Hosses is ten, cows is six, cats is three; but human bein's? Blowed if I know." And he shook his head. At last this hard, hatchet-faced looking man, standing back alone in the corner, seemed to have got it all counted up to his own satisfaction. He counted, however, again; then he said, as if to himself, "Seven months at the very outside," and slapped his hands together with great glee, and sucked his thin brown lips as if he had just tasted something very delicious. Then this hatchet-faced fellow, still rubbing his hands and still twirling his lip, and all the time grinning with a grin that was sweet and devilish, turned to the first man at his side, and whispered in his ear. This man started and spun around when the hard-faced man had finished as if he had been a top, and the hatchet-faced fellow had struck him with a whip. The man spun about, in fact, till the hard-faced fellow caught hold of his eye with his own and held him there till he could catch his breath. Then the man, after catching his breath, and catching it again, said slowly, but most emphatically: "Ompossible!" The hatchet-faced man simply pecked in the face of the other. He did not say any thing more to him, but he pecked at him again, and he pecked emphatically, too, and in a way that would not admit of any two opinions; as if the man were a grain of corn, and he had half a mind to pick him up and swallow him down for daring to hint that it was impossible. Then the man went off suddenly to one side, and he too fell to counting on his fingers, and to taking a whole knot of men into his confidence. Then the hatchet-faced fellow went up to another man and whispered in his ear, with his smirk and his sweet devilish smile, and he soon set him to spinning round like a top, and to lifting up his fingers and counting one, two, three, four, five. Then all around the saloon men
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109  
110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   >>  



Top keywords:

hatchet

 

fellow

 

fingers

 

pecked

 

counted

 

emphatically

 
catching
 

breath

 
counting
 
devilish

whispered

 
simply
 
Ompossible
 

slowly

 
finished
 

lifting

 
started
 

saloon

 
spinning
 

struck


caught

 
suddenly
 

impossible

 

daring

 

taking

 

swallow

 

confidence

 

opinions

 

turned

 

Blowed


shoulders

 

corner

 

standing

 
wrestling
 
middle
 

profound

 

pursing

 

holding

 

problem

 

Euclid


Hosses

 

stopped

 
square
 

rubbing

 
twirling
 
delicious
 

tasted

 
waddle
 
grinning
 

months