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Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
IN THE SWEET DRY AND DRY
BY CHRISTOPHER MORLEY AND BART HALEY
ILLUSTRATED BY GLUYAS WILLIAMS
DEDICATED TO G. K. CHESTERTON
MOST DELIGHTFUL OF MODERN DECANTERBURY PILGRIMS
FOREWORD
As far as this book is concerned, the public may Take It, or the
public may Let It Alone. But the authors feel it their duty to say
that no deductions as to their own private habits are to be made
from the story here offered. With its composition they have
beguiled the moments of the valley of the shadow.
Acknowledgement should be made to the Evening Public Ledger of
Philadelphia for permission to reprint the ditty included in
Chapter VI.
The public will forgive this being only a brief preface, for at
the moment of writing the time is short. Wishing you a Merry
Abstinence, and looking forward to meeting you some day in Europe,
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, BART HALEY.
Philadelphia, Ten minutes before Midnight, June 30, 1919.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. MYSTERY OF THE UNEXPECTED JULEP
II. THE HOUSE ON CARAWAY STREET
III. INCIDENT OF THE GOOSEBERRY BOMBS
IV. THE GREAT WAR BEGINS
V. THE TREACHERY OF MISS CHUFF
VI. DEPARTED SPIRITS
VII. THE DECANTERBURY PILGRIMS
VIII. WITH BENEFIT OF CLERGY
IX. THE ELECTION
X. E PLURIBUS UNUM
XI. IT'S A LONG WORM THAT HAS NO TURNING
IN THE SWEET DRY AND DRY
CHAPTER I
MYSTERY OF THE UNEXPECTED JULEP
Dunraven Bleak, the managing editor of The Evening Balloon, sat
at his desk in the center of the local-room, under a furious cone
of electric light. It was six o'clock of a warm summer afternoon:
he was filling his pipe and turning over the pages of the Final
edition of the paper, which had just come up from the press-room.
After the turmoil of the day the room had quieted, most of the
reporters had left, and the shaded lamps shone upon empty tables
and a floor strewn ankle-deep with papers. Nearby sat the city
editor, checking over the list of assignments for the next
morning. From an adjoining kennel issued occasional deep groans
and a strong whiff of savage shag tobacco, blown outward by the
droning gust of an electric fan. These proved that the cartoonist
(a man whose sprightly drawings were born to an obbligato of
vehement blasphemy) was at work within.
Mr. Bleak was just beginning to recuperate from the incessant
vigilance of the day's work. There was an unconscious pathos in
his lean, desiccated figure as he rose and crossed the room to the
green glass drinking-fountain. After the custom of experienced
newspapermen, he rapidly twirled a makeshift cup out of a sheet of
copy paper. He poured himself a draught of clear but rather tepid
water, and drank it without noticeable relish. His lifted head
betrayed only the automatic thankfulness of the domestic fowl.
There had been a time when six o'clock meant something better than
a paper goblet of lukewarm filtration.
He sat down at his desk again. He had loaded his pipe sedulously
with an extra fine blend which he kept in his desk drawer for
smoking during rare moments of relaxation when he had leisure to
savor it. As he reached for a match he was meditating a genial
remark to the city editor, when he discovered that there was only
one tandsticker in the box. He struck it, and the blazing head
flew off upon the cream-colored thigh of his Palm Beach suit. His
naturally placid temper, undermined by thirty years of newspaper
work and two years of prohibition, flamed up also. With a loud
scream of rage and a curse against Sweden, he leaped to his feet
and shook the glowing cinder from his person. Facing him he found
a stranger who had entered the room quietly and unobserved.
This was a huge man, clad in a sober uniform of gray cloth, with
silver buttons and silver braid. A Sam Browne belt of wide blue
leather marched across his extensive diagonal in a gentle curve.
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