|
Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG
A NOVEL
BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS
CONTENTS
I.--MR. CRAIG ARRAYS HIMSELF
II.--IN THE BEST SOCIETY
III.--A DESPERATE YOUNG WOMAN
IV.--"HE ISN'T LIKE US"
V.--ALMOST HOOKED
VI.--MR. CRAIG IN SWEET DANGER
VII.--MRS. SEVERENCE IS ROUSED
VIII.--MR. CRAIG CONFIDES
IX.--SOMEWHAT CYCLONIC
X.--A BELATED PROPOSAL
XI.--MADAM BOWKER HEARS THE NEWS
XII.--PUTTING DOWN A MUTINY
XIII.--A MEMORABLE MEETING
XIV.--MAGGIE AND JOSH
XV.--THE EMBASSY GARDEN PARTY
XVI.--A FIGHT AND A FINISH
XVII.--A NIGHT MARCH
XVIII.--PEACE AT ANY PRICE
XIX.--MADAM BOWKER'S BLESSING
XX.-MR. CRAIG KISSES THE IDOL'S FOOT
XXI.--A SWOOP AND A SCRATCH
XXII.--GETTING ACQUAINTED
XXIII.--WHAT THE MOON SAW AND DID
XXIV.--"OUR HOUSE IS AFIRE"
XXV.--MRS. JOSHUA CRAIG
THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG
CHAPTER I
MR. CRAIG ARRAYS HIMSELF
It was one of the top-floor-rear flats in the Wyandotte, not
merely biggest of Washington's apartment hotels, but also "most
exclusive"--which is the elegant way of saying most expensive. The
Wyandotte had gone up before landlords grasped the obvious truth
that in a fire-proof structure locations farthest from noise and
dust should and could command highest prices; so Joshua Craig's
flat was the cheapest in the house. The ninety dollars a month
loomed large in his eyes, focused to little-town ideas of values;
it was, in fact, small for shelter in "the de luxe district of the
de luxe quarter," to quote Mrs. Senator Mulvey, that simple, far-
Western soul, who, finding snobbishness to be the chief
distinguishing mark of the Eastern upper classes, assumed it was a
virtue, acquired it laboriously, and practiced it as openly and
proudly as a preacher does piety. Craig's chief splendor was a
sitting-room, called a parlor and bedecked in the red plush and
Nottingham that represent hotel men's probably shrewd guess at the
traveling public's notion of interior opulence. Next the sitting-
room, and with the same dreary outlook, or, rather, downlook, upon
disheveled and squalid back yards, was a dingy box of a bedroom.
Like the parlor, it was outfitted with furniture that had
degenerated upward, floor by floor, from the spacious and
luxurious first-floor suites. Between the two rooms, in dark
mustiness, lay a bathroom with suspicious-looking, wood-inclosed
plumbing; the rusted iron of the tub peered through scuffs and
seams in the age-grayed porcelain.
Arkwright glanced from the parlor where he was sitting into the
gloom of the open bathroom and back again. His cynical brown-green
eyes paused upon a scatter of clothing, half-hiding the badly-
rubbed red plush of the sofa--a mussy flannel nightshirt with
mothholes here and there; kneed trousers, uncannily reminiscent of
a rough and strenuous wearer; a smoking-jacket that, after a
youth of cheap gayety, was now a frayed and tattered wreck, like
an old tramp, whose "better days" were none too good. On the
radiator stood a pair of wrinkled shoes that had never known
trees; their soles were curved like rockers. An old pipe clamored
at his nostrils, though it was on the table near the window, the
full length of the room from him. Papers and books were strewn
about everywhere. It was difficult to believe these unkempt and
uncouth surroundings, and the personality that had created them,
were actually being harbored behind the walls of the Wyandotte.
"What a hole!" grumbled Arkwright. He was in evening clothes, so
correct in their care and in their carelessness that even a woman
would have noted and admired. "What a mess! What a hole!"
"How's that?" came from the bedroom in an aggressive voice, so
penetrating that it seemed loud, though it was not, and much
roughened by open-air speaking. "What are you growling about?"
|
|
