Local Color

by Jack London

  


"I do not see why you should not turn this immense amount of unusualinformation to account," I told him. "Unlike most men equipped with similarknowledge, you have expression. Your style is--""Is sufficiently--er--journalese?" he interrupted suavely."Precisely! You could turn a pretty penny."But he interlocked his fingers meditatively, shrugged his shoulders, anddismissed the subject."I trave tried it. It does not pay.""It was paid for and published," he added, after a pause. "And I was alsohonored with sixty days in the Hobo.""The Hobo?" I ventured."The Hobo--" He fixed his eyes on my Spencer and ran along the titles while hecast his definition. "The Hobo, my dear fellow, is the name for thatparticular place of detention in city and county jails wherein are assembledtramps, drunks, beggars, and the riff-raff of petty offenders. The word itselfis a pretty one, and it has a history. Hautbois--there's the French of it.haut, meaning high, and bois, wood. In English it becomes hautboy, a woodenmusical instrument of two-foot tone, I believe, played with a double reed, anoboe, in fact. You remember in 'Henry IV'--"'The case of a treble hautboy

  Was a mansion for him, a court.'From this to ho-boy is but a step, and for that matter the English used theterms interchangeably. But--and mark you, the leap paralyzes one--crossing theWestern Ocean, in New York City, hautboy, or ho-boy, becomes the name by whichthe night-scavenger is known. In a way one understands its being born of thecontempt for wandering players and musical fellows. But see the beauty of it!the burn and the brand! The night-scavenger, the pariah, the miserable, thedespised, the man without caste! And in its next incarnation, consistently andlogically, it attaches itself to the American outcast, namely, the tramp.Then, as others have mutilated its sense, the tramp mutilates its form, andho-boy becomes exultantly hobo. Wherefore, the large stone and brick cells,lined with double and triple-tiered bunks, in which the Law is wont toincarcerate him, he calls the Hobo. Interesting, isn't it?"And I sat back and marvelled secretly at this encyclopaedic-minded man, thisLeith Clay-Randolph, this common tramp who made himself at home in my den,charmed such friends as gathered at my small table, outshone me with hisbrilliance and his manners, spent my spending money, smoked my best cigars,and selected from my ties and studs with a cultivated and discriminating eye.He absently walked over to the shelves and looked into Loria's "EconomicFoundation of Society.""I like to talk with you," he remarked. "You are not indifferently schooled.You've read the books, and your economic interpretation of history, as youchoose to call it" (this with a sneer), "eminently fits you for anintellectual outlook on life. But your sociologic judgments are vitiated byyour lack of practical knowledge. Now I, who know the books, pardon me,somewhat better than you, know life, too. I have lived it, naked, taken it upin both my hands and looked at it, and tasted it, the flesh and the blood ofit, and, being purely an intellectual, I have been biased by neither passionnor prejudice. All of which is necessary for clear concepts, and all of whichyou lack. Ah! a really clever passage. Listen!"And he read aloud to me in his remarkable style, paralleling the text with arunning criticism and commentary, lucidly wording involved and lumberingperiods, casting side and cross lights upon the subject, introducing pointsthe author had blundered past and objections he had ignored, catching up lostends, flinging a contrast into a paradox and reducing it to a coherent andsuccinctly stated truth--in short, flashing his luminous genius in a blaze offire over pages erstwhile dull and heavy and lifeless.It is long since that Leith Clay-Randolph (note the hyphenated surname)knocked at the back door of Idlewild and melted the heart of Gunda. Now Gundawas cold as her Norway hills, though in her least frigid moods she was capableof permitting especially nice-looking tramps to sit on the back stoop anddevour lone crusts and forlorn and forsaken chops. But that a tatterdemalionout of the night should invade the sanctity of her kitchen-kingdom and delaydinner while she set a place for him in the warmest corner, was a matter ofsuch moment that the Sunflower went to see. Ah, the Sunflower, of the softheart and swift sympathy! Leith Clay-Randolph threw his glamour over her forfifteen long minutes, whilst I brooded with my cigar, and then she flutteredback with vague words and the suggestion of a cast-off suit I would nevermiss."Surely I shall never miss it," I said, and I had in mind the dark gray suitwith the pockets draggled from the freightage of many books--books that hadspoiled more than one day's fishing sport."I should advise you, however," I added, "to mend the pockets first."But the Sunflower's face clouded. "N--o," she said, "the black one.""The black one!" This explosively, incredulously. "I wear it quite often. I--Iintended wearing it to-night.""You have two better ones, and you know I never liked it, dear," the Sunflowerhurried on. "Besides, it's shiny--""Shiny!""It--it soon will be, which is just the same, and the man is really estimable.He is nice and refined, and I am sure he--""Has seen better days.""Yes, and the weather is raw and beastly, and his clothes are threadbare. Andyou have many suits--""Five," I corrected, "counting in the dark gray fishing outfit with thedraggled pockets.""And he has none, no home, nothing--""Not even a Sunflower,"--putting my arm around her,--"wherefore he isdeserving of all things. Give him the black suit, dear--nay, the best one, thevery best one. Under high heaven for such lack there must be compensation!""You are a dear!" And the Sunflower moved to the door and looked backalluringly. "You are a perfect dear."And this after seven years, I marvelled, till she was back again, timid andapologetic."I--I gave him one of your white shirts. He wore a cheap horrid cotton thing,and I knew it would look ridiculous. And then his shoes were so slipshod, Ilet him have a pair of yours, the old ones with the narrow caps--""Old ones!""Well, they pinched horribly, and you know they did."It was ever thus the Sunflower vindicated things.And so Leith Clay-Randolph came to Idlewild to stay, how long I did not dream.Nor did I dream how often he was to come, for he was like an erratic comet.Fresh he would arrive, and cleanly clad, from grand folk who were his friendsas I was his friend, and again, weary and worn, he would creep up thebrier-rose path from the Montanas or Mexico. And without a word, when hiswanderlust gripped him, he was off and away into that great mysteriousunderworld he called "The Road.""I could not bring myself to leave until I had thanked you, you of the openhand and heart," he said, on the night he donned my good black suit.And I confess I was startled when I glanced over the top of my paper and saw alofty-browed and eminently respectable-looking gentleman, boldly andcarelessly at ease. The Sunflower was right. He must have known better daysfor the black suit and white shirt to have effected such a transformation.Involuntarily I rose to my feet, prompted to meet him on equal ground. Andthen it was that the Clay-Randolph glamour descended upon me. He slept atIdlewild that night, and the next night, and for many nights. And he was a manto love. The Son of Anak, otherwise Rufus the Blue-Eyed, and also plebeianlyknown as Tots, rioted with him from brier-rose path to farthest orchard,scalped him in the haymow with barbaric yells, and once, with pharisaic zeal,was near to crucifying him under the attic roof beams. The Sunflower wouldhave loved him for the Son of Anak's sake, had she not loved him for his own.As for myself, let the Sunflower tell, in the times he elected to be gone, ofhow often I wondered when Leith would come back again, Leith the Lovable. Yethe was a man of whom we knew nothing. Beyond the fact that he wasKentucky-born, his past was a blank. He never spoke of it. And he was a manwho prided himself upon his utter divorce of reason from emotion. To him theworld spelled itself out in problems. I charged him once with being guilty ofemotion when roaring round the den with the Son of Anak pickaback. Not so, heheld. Could he not cuddle a sense-delight for the problem's sake?He was elusive. A man who intermingled nameless argot with polysyllabic andtechnical terms, he would seem sometimes the veriest criminal, in speech,face, expression, everything; at other times the cultured and polishedgentleman, and again, the philosopher and scientist. But there was somethingglimmering; there which I never caught--flashes of sincerity, of real feeling,I imagined, which were sped ere I could grasp; echoes of the man he once was,possibly, or hints of the man behind the mask. But the mask he never lifted,and the real man we never knew."But the sixty days with which you were rewarded for your journalism?" Iasked. "Never mind Loria. Tell me.""Well, if I must." He flung one knee over the other with a short laugh."In a town that shall be nameless," he began, "in fact, a city of fiftythousand, a fair and beautiful city wherein men slave for dollars and womenfor dress, an idea came to me. My front was prepossessing, as fronts go, andmy pockets empty. I had in recollection a thought I once entertained ofwriting a reconciliation of Kant and Spencer. Not that they are reconcilable,of course, but the room offered for scientific satire--"I waved my hand impatiently, and he broke off."I was just tracing my mental states for you, in order to show the genesis ofthe action," he explained. "However, the idea came. What was the matter with atramp sketch for the daily press? The Irreconcilability of the Constable andthe Tramp, for instance? So I hit the drag (the drag, my dear fellow, ismerely the street), or the high places, if you will, for a newspaper office.The elevator whisked me into the sky, and Cerberus, in the guise of an anaemicoffice boy, guarded the door. Consumption, one could see it at a glance;nerve, Irish, colossal; tenacity, undoubted; dead inside the year."'Pale youth,' quoth I, 'I pray thee the way to the sanctum-sanctorum, to theMost High Cock-a-lorum.'"He deigned to look at me, scornfully, with infinite weariness."'G'wan an' see the janitor. I don't know nothin' about the gas.'"'Nay, my lily-white, the editor.'"'Wich editor?' he snapped like a young bullterrier. 'Dramatic? Sportin'?Society? Sunday? Weekly? Daily? Telegraph? Local? News? Editorial? Wich?'"Which, I did not know. 'The Editor,' I proclaimed stoutly. 'The only Editor.'"'Aw, Spargo!' he sniffed."'Of course, Spargo,' I answered. 'Who else?'"'Gimme yer card,' says he."'My what?'"'Yer card--Say! Wot's yer business, anyway?'"And the anaemic Cerberus sized me up with so insolent an eye that I reachedover and took him out of his chair. I knocked on his meagre chest with my foreknuckle, and fetched forth a weak, gaspy cough; but he looked at meunflinchingly, much like a defiant sparrow held in the hand."'I am the census-taker Time,' I boomed in sepulchral tones. 'Beware lest Iknock too loud.'"'Oh, I don't know,' he sneered."Whereupon I rapped him smartly, and he choked and turned purplish."'Well, whatcher want?' he wheezed with returning breath."'I want Spargo, the only Spargo.'"'Then leave go, an' I'll glide an' see.'"'No you don't, my lily-white.' And I took a tighter grip on his collar. 'Nobouncers in mine, understand! I'll go along.'"Leith dreamily surveyed the long ash of his cigar and turned to me. "Do youknow, Anak, you can't appreciate the joy of being the buffoon, playing theclown. You couldn't do it if you wished. Your pitiful little conventions andsmug assumptions of decency would prevent. But simply to turn loose your soulto every whimsicality, to play the fool unafraid of any possible result, why,that requires a man other than a householder and law-respecting citizen."However, as I was saying, I saw the only Spargo. He was a big, beefy,red-faced personage, full-jowled and double-chinned, sweating at his desk inhis shirt-sleeves. It was August, you know. He was talking into a telephonewhen I entered, or swearing rather, I should say, and the while studying mewith his eyes. When he hung up, he turned to me expectantly."'You are a very busy man,' I said."He jerked a nod with his head, and waited."'And after all, is it worth it?' I went on. 'What does life mean that itshould make you sweat? What justification do you find in sweat? Now look atme. I toil not, neither do I spin--'"'Who are you? What are you?' he bellowed with a suddenness that was, well,rude, tearing the words out as a dog does a bone."'A very pertinent question, sir,' I acknowledged. 'First, I am a man; next, adown-trodden American citizen. I am cursed with neither profession, trade, norexpectations. Like Esau, I am pottageless. My residence is everywhere; the skyis my coverlet. I am one of the dispossessed, a sansculotte, a proletarian,or, in simpler phraseology addressed to your understanding, a tramp.'"'What the hell--?'"'Nay, fair sir, a tramp, a man of devious ways and strange lodgements andmultifarious--'"'Quit it!' he shouted. 'What do you want?'"'I want money.'"He started and half reached for an open drawer where must have reposed arevolver, then bethought himself and growled, 'This is no bank.'"'Nor have I checks to cash. But I have, sir, an idea, which, by your leaveand kind assistance, I shall transmute into cash. In short, how does a trampsketch, done by a tramp to the life, strike you? Are you open to it? Do yourreaders hunger for it? Do they crave after it? Can they be happy without it?'"I thought for a moment that he would have apoplexy, but he quelled the unrulyblood and said he liked my nerve. I thanked him and assured him I liked itmyself. Then he offered me a cigar and said he thought he'd do business withme."'But mind you,' he said, when he had jabbed a bunch of copy paper into myhand and given me a pencil from his vest pocket, 'mind you, I won't stand forthe high and flighty philosophical, and I perceive you have a tendency thatway. Throw in the local color, wads of it, and a bit of sentiment perhaps, butno slumgullion about political economy nor social strata or such stuff. Makeit concrete, to the point, with snap and go and life, crisp and crackling andinteresting--tumble?'"And I tumbled and borrowed a dollar."'Don't forget the local color!' he shouted after me through the door."And, Anak, it was the local color that did for me."The anaemic Cerberus grinned when I took the elevator. 'Got the bounce, eh?'"'Nay, pale youth, so lily-white,' I chortled, waving the copy paper; 'not thebounce, but a detail. I'll be City Editor in three months, and then I'll makeyou jump.'"And as the elevator stopped at the next floor down to take on a pair ofmaids, he strolled over to the shaft, and without frills or verbiage consignedme and my detail to perdition. But I liked him. He had pluck and was unafraid,and he knew, as well as I, that death clutched him close.""But how could you, Leith," I cried, the picture of the consumptive lad strongbefore me, "how could you treat him so barbarously?"Leith laughed dryly. "My dear fellow, how often must I explain to you yourconfusions? Orthodox sentiment and stereotyped emotion master you. And thenyour temperament! You are really incapable of rational judgments. Cerberus?Pshaw! A flash expiring, a mote of fading sparkle, a dim-pulsing and dyingorganism--pouf! a snap of the fingers, a puff of breath, what would you? Apawn in the game of life. Not even a problem. There is no problem in astillborn babe, nor in a dead child. They never arrived. Nor did Cerberus. Nowfor a really pretty problem--""But the local color?" I prodded him."That's right," he replied. "Keep me in the running. Well, I took my handfulof copy paper down to the railroad yards (for local color), dangled my legsfrom a side-door Pullman, which is another name for a box-car, and ran off thestuff. Of course I made it clever and brilliant and all that, with my littleunanswerable slings at the state and my social paradoxes, and withal made itconcrete enough to dissatisfy the average citizen."From the tramp standpoint, the constabulary of the township was particularlyrotten, and I proceeded to open the eyes of the good people. It is aproposition, mathematically demonstrable, that it costs the community more toarrest, convict, and confine its tramps in jail, than to send them as guests,for like periods of time, to the best hotel. And this I developed, giving thefacts and figures, the constable fees and the mileage, and the court and jailexpenses. Oh, it was convincing, and it was true; and I did it in a lightlyhumorous fashion which fetched the laugh and left the sting. The mainobjection to the system, I contended, was the defraudment and robbery of thetramp. The good money which the community paid out for him should enable himto riot in luxury instead of rotting in dungeons. I even drew the figures sofine as to permit him not only to live in the best hotel but to smoke twotwenty-five-cent cigars and indulge in a ten-cent shine each day, and stillnot cost the taxpayers so much as they were accustomed to pay for hisconviction and jail entertainment. And, as subsequent events proved, it madethe taxpayers wince."One of the constables I drew to the life; nor did I forget a certain SolGlenhart, as rotten a police judge as was to be found between the seas. Andthis I say out of a vast experience. While he was notorious in local trampdom,his civic sins were not only not unknown but a crying reproach to thetownspeople. Of course I refrained from mentioning name or habitat, drawingthe picture in an impersonal, composite sort of way, which none the lessblinded no one to the faithfulness of the local color."Naturally, myself a tramp, the tenor of the article was a protest against themaltreatment of the tramp. Cutting the taxpayers to the pits of their pursesthrew them open to sentiment, and then in I tossed the sentiment, lumps andchunks of it. Trust me, it was excellently done, and the rhetoric--say I Justlisten to the tail of my peroration:"'So, as we go mooching along the drag, with a sharp lamp out for John Law, wecannot help remembering that we are beyond the pale; that our ways are nottheir ways; and that the ways of John Law with us are different from his wayswith other men. Poor lost souls, wailing for a crust in the dark, we know fullwell our helplessness and ignominy. And well may we repeat after a strickenbrother over-seas: "Our pride it is to know no spur of pride." Man hasforgotten us; God has forgotten us; only are we remembered by the harpies ofjustice, who prey upon our distress and coin our sighs and tears into brightshining dollars.'"Incidentally, my picture of Sol Glenhart, the police judge, was good. Astriking likeness, and unmistakable, with phrases tripping along like this:'This crook-nosed, gross-bodied harpy'; 'this civic sinner, this judicialhighwayman'; 'possessing the morals of the Tenderloin and an honor whichthieves' honor puts to shame'; 'who compounds criminality with shyster-sharks,and in atonement railroads the unfortunate and impecunious to rottingcells,'--and so forth and so forth, style sophomoric and devoid of the dignityand tone one would employ in a dissertation on 'Surplus Value,' or 'TheFallacies of Marxism,' but just the stuff the dear public likes."'Humph!' grunted Spargo when I put the copy in his fist. 'Swift gait youstrike, my man.'"I fixed a hypnotic eye on his vest pocket, and he passed out one of hissuperior cigars, which I burned while he ran through the stuff. Twice orthrice he looked over the top of the paper at me, searchingly, but saidnothing till he had finished."'Where'd you work, you pencil-pusher?' he asked."'My maiden effort,' I simpered modestly, scraping one foot and faintlysimulating embarrassment."'Maiden hell! What salary do you want?'"'Nay, nay,' I answered. 'No salary in mine, thank you most to death. I am afree down-trodden American citizen, and no man shall say my time is his.'"'Save John Law,' he chuckled."'Save John Law,' said I."'How did you know I was bucking the police department?' he demanded abruptly."'I didn't know, but I knew you were in training,' I answered. 'Yesterdaymorning a charitably inclined female presented me with three biscuits, a pieceof cheese, and a funereal slab of chocolate cake, all wrapped in the currentClarion, wherein I noted an unholy glee because the Cowbell's candidate forchief of police had been turned down. Likewise I learned the municipalelection was at hand, and put two and two together. Another mayor, and theright kind, means new police commissioners; new police commissioners means newchief of police; new chief of police. means Cowbell's candidate; ergo, yourturn to play.'"He stood up, shook my hand, and emptied his plethoric vest pocket. I put themaway and puffed on the old one."'You'll do,' he jubilated. 'This stuff' (patting my copy) 'is the first gunof the campaign. You'll touch off many another before we're done. I've beenlooking for you for years. Come on in on the editorial.'"But I shook my head."'Come, now!' he admonished sharply. 'No shenanagan! The Cowbell must haveyou. It hungers for you, craves after you, won't be happy till it gets you.What say?'"In short, he wrestled with me, but I was bricks, and at the end of half anhour the only Spargo gave it up."'Remember,' he said, 'any time you reconsider, I'm open. No matter where youare, wire me and I'll send the ducats to come on at once.'"I thanked him, and asked the pay for my copy--dope, he called it."'Oh, regular routine,' he said. 'Get it the first Thursday afterpublication.'"'Then I'll have to trouble you for a few scad until--'"He looked at me and smiled. 'Better cough up, eh?'"'Sure,' I said. 'Nobody to identify me, so make it cash.'"And cash it was made, thirty plunks (a plunk is a dollar, my dear Anak), andI pulled my freight . . . eh?--oh, departed."'Pale youth,' I said to Cerberus, 'I am bounced.' (He grinned with pallidjoy.) 'And in token of the sincere esteem I bear you, receive this little--'(His eyes flushed and he threw up one hand, swiftly, to guard his head fromthe expected blow)--'this little memento.'"I had intended to slip a fiver into his hand, but for all his surprise, hewas too quick for me."'Aw, keep yer dirt,' he snarled."'I like you still better,' I said, adding a second fiver. 'You grow perfect.But you must take it.'"He backed away growling, but I caught him round the neck, roughed what littlewind he had out of him, and left him doubled up with the two fives in hispocket. But hardly had the elevator started, when the two coins tinkled on theroof and fell down between the car and the shaft. As luck had it, the door wasnot closed, and I put out my hand and caught them. The elevator boy's eyesbulged."'It's a way I have,' I said, pocketing them."'Some bloke's dropped 'em down the shaft,' he whispered, awed by thecircumstance."'It stands to reason,' said I."'I'll take charge of 'em,' he volunteered."'Nonsense!'"'You'd better turn 'em over,' he threatened, 'or I stop the works.'"'Pshaw!'"And stop he did, between floors."'Young man,' I said, 'have you a mother?' (He looked serious, as thoughregretting his act! and further to impress him I rolled up my right sleevewith greatest care.) 'Are you prepared to die?' (I got a stealthy crouch on,and put a cat-foot forward.) 'But a minute, a brief minute, stands between youand eternity.' (Here I crooked my right hand into a claw and slid the otherfoot up.) 'Young man, young man,' I trumpeted, 'in thirty seconds I shall tearyour heart dripping from your bosom and stoop to hear you shriek in hell.'"It fetched him. He gave one whoop, the car shot down, and I was on the drag.You see, Anak, it's a habit I can't shake off of leaving vivid memoriesbehind. No one ever forgets me."I had not got to the corner when I heard a familiar voice at my shoulder:"'Hello, Cinders! Which way?'"It was Chi Slim, who had been with me once when I was thrown off a freight inJacksonville. 'Couldn't see 'em fer cinders,' he described it, and the Monicastuck by me.... Monica? From Monos. The tramp nickname."'Bound south,' I answered. 'And how's Slim?'"'Bum. Bulls is horstile.'"'Where's the push?'"'At the hang-out. I'll put you wise.'"'Who's the main guy?'"'Me, and don't yer ferget it.'"The lingo was rippling from Leith's lips, but perforce I stopped him. "Praytranslate. Remember, I am a foreigner.""Certainly," he answered cheerfully. "Slim is in poor luck. Bull meanspoliceman. He tells me the bulls are hostile. I ask where the push is, thegang he travels with. By putting me wise he will direct me to where the gangis hanging out. The main guy is the leader. Slim claims that distinction."Slim and I hiked out to a neck of woods just beyond town, and there was thepush, a score of husky hobos, charmingly located on the bank of a littlepurling stream."'Come on, you mugs!' Slim addressed them. 'Throw yer feet! Here's Cinders,an' we must do 'em proud.'"All of which signifies that the hobos had better strike out and do somelively begging in order to get the wherewithal to celebrate my return to thefold after a year's separation. But I flashed my dough and Slim sent severalof the younger men off to buy the booze. Take my word for it, Anak, it was ablow-out memorable in Trampdom to this day. It's amazing the quantity of boozethirty plunks will buy, and it is equally amazing the quantity of boozeoutside of which twenty stiffs will get. Beer and cheap wine made up the card,with alcohol thrown in for the blowd-in-the-glass stiffs. It was great--anorgy under the sky, a contest of beaker-men, a study in primitive beastliness.To me there is something fascinating in a drunken man, and were I a collegepresident I should institute P.G. psychology courses in practical drunkenness.It would beat the books and compete with the laboratory."All of which is neither here nor there, for after sixteen hours of it, earlynext morning, the whole push was copped by an overwhelming array of constablesand carted off to jail. After breakfast, about ten o'clock, we were linedupstairs into court, limp and spiritless, the twenty of us. And there, underhis purple panoply, nose crooked like a Napoleonic eagle and eyes glitteringand beady, sat Sol Glenhart."'John Ambrose!' the clerk called out, and Chi Slim, with the ease of longpractice, stood up."'Vagrant, your Honor,' the bailiff volunteered, and his Honor, not deigningto look at the prisoner, snapped,'Ten days,' and Chi Slim sat down."And so it went, with the monotony of clockwork, fifteen seconds to the man,four men to the minute, the mugs bobbing up and down in turn like marionettes.The clerk called the name, the bailiff the offence, the judge the sentence,and the man sat down. That was all. Simple, eh? Superb!"Chi Slim nudged me. 'Give'm a spiel, Cinders. You kin do it.'"I shook my head."'G'wan,' he urged. 'Give 'm a ghost story The mugs'll take it all right. Andyou kin throw yer feet fer tobacco for us till we get out.'"'L. C. Randolph!' the clerk called."I stood up, but a hitch came in the proceedings. The clerk whispered to thejudge, and the bailiff smiled."'You are a newspaper man, I understand, Mr. Randolph?' his Honor remarkedsweetly."It took me by surprise, for I had forgotten the Cowbell in the excitement ofsucceeding events, and I now saw myself on the edge of the pit I had digged."'That's yer graft. Work it,' Slim prompted."'It's all over but the shouting,' I groaned back, but Slim, unaware of thearticle, was puzzled."'Your Honor,' I answered, 'when I can get work, that is my occupation.'"'You take quite an interest in local affairs, I see.' (Here his Honor took upthe morning's Cowbell and ran his eye up and down a column I knew was mine.)'Color is good,' he commented, an appreciative twinkle in his eyes; 'picturesexcellent, characterized by broad, Sargent-like effects. Now this . . . thisjudge you have depicted . . . you, ah, draw from life, I presume?'"'Rarely, your I Honor,' I answered. 'Composites, ideals, rather . . . er,types, I may say.'"'But you have color, sir, unmistakable color,' he continued."'That is splashed on afterward,' I explained."'This judge, then, is not modelled from life, as one might be led tobelieve?'"'No, your Honor.'"'Ah, I see, merely a type of judicial wickedness?'"'Nay, more, your Honor,' I said boldly, 'an ideal.'"'Splashed with local color afterward? Ha! Good! And may I venture to ask howmuch you received for this bit of work?'"'Thirty dollars, your Honor.'"'Hum, good!' And his tone abruptly changed. 'Young man, local color is a badthing. I find you guilty of it and sentence you to thirty days' imprisonment,or, at your pleasure, impose a fine of thirty dollars.'"'Alas!' said I, 'I spent the thirty dollars in riotous living.'"'And thirty days more for wasting your substance.'"'Next case!' said his Honor to the clerk."Slim was stunned. 'Gee!' he whispered. 'Gee the push gets ten days and youget sixty. Gee!'"Leith struck a match, lighted his dead cigar, and opened the book on hisknees. "Returning to the original conversation, don't you find, Anak, thatthough Loria handles the bipartition of the revenues with scrupulous care, heyet omits one important factor, namely--""Yes," I said absently; "yes."



Previous Authors:Li Wan, the Fair Next Authors:Lost Face
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdbook.com All Rights Reserved