The Writings of Thomas Bailey Aldrich Volume 3; Marjorie Daw, and Other Stories (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: ... though with no very lucid purpose. One morning we came face to face at the intersection of two paths. He halted courteously to allow me the precedence. "Mr. Wentworth," I began, "I "--He interrupted me. "My name, sir," he said, in an off-hand manner, "is Jones." "Jo-Jo-Jones " I gasped. "No, not Joseph Jones," he returned, with a glacial air--" Frederick." A dim light, in which the perfidy of my friend H was becoming discernible, began to break upon my mind. It will probably be a standing wonder to Mr. Frederick Jones why a strange man accosted him one morning on the Common as "Mr. Wentworth," and then dashed madly down the nearest foot-path and disappeared in the crowd. The fact is, I had been duped by Mr. H, who is a gentleman of literary proclivities, and has, it is whispered, become somewhat demented in brooding over the Great American Novel--not yet hatched. He had actually tried the effect of one of his chapters on me My hero, as I subsequently learned, was a commonplace young person, who had some connection, I know not what, with the building of that graceful granite bridge which spans the crooked silver lake in the Public Garden. When I think of the readiness with which Mr. H built up his airy fabric on my credulity, I feel half inclined to laugh, though I am deeply mortified at having been the unresisting victim of his Black Art. QUITE SO Of course that was not his name. Even in the State of Maine, where it is still a custom to maim a child for life by christening him Arioch or Shadrach or Ephraim, nobody would dream of calling a boy "Quite So." It was merely a nickname which we gave him in camp; but it stuck to him with such bur-like tenacity, and is so ins...