Search -
The Cruise of the "scandal" and Other Stories
The Cruise of the scandal and Other Stories Author:Victor Bridges General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1920 Original Publisher: G.P. Putnam Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can sel... more »ect from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: With the Conquering Turkey I Had just finished breakfast, and was slowly enjoying an especially fragrant pipe, when my front-door bell rang with some violence. "This is undoubtedly Pitman," I said to myself. It was. He came in stamping the snow off his boots on to my new carpet. "Sit down," I said harshly. He seated himself obediently, and tearing off the front page of the News and Leader, which had been left at my house by mistake, I handed it across to him. " Put your feet on that," I said, "if they'll go on, and don't move until they are properly thawed, and whatever you do, don't remark it's seasonable weather." He followed my instructions meekly. Pitman is a great friend of mine. We live in the same village, and he is a local architect. At least, that is what he calls himself. Some of his clients call him other things. He is also married. I am rather frightened of Mrs. Pitman, for she is under the impression that I exercise an evil influence over her husband. She told another ladyin confidence, who repeated it to me, that "no man would live in a country village by himself unless he had something to hide." I tossed my tobacco pouch across the table. "Light a pipe and explain yourself," I said. "I thought you would be in bed and asleep," he began. "You're getting into vicious habits living alone. When an unmarried man takes to breakfasting at nine o'clock it's a bad sign -- shows he can't sleep." "Pitman," I said pathetically, "you have not come out half a mile on a snowy morning to try and be funny. Out with it." "Have you got any whisky?" he inquired...« less