The Turmoil Booth Tarkington (best reads .txt) š
- Author: Booth Tarkington
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āI donāt know what you mean,ā Mrs. Vertrees insisted, shaking her head plaintively.
āYes,ā said Mary, āIām going out in his car with him tomorrow afternoon, and to the theater the next nightā ābut I stopped it there. You see, after you give the first push, you must leave it to them while you pretend to run away!ā
āMy dear, I donāt know what toā āā
āWhat to make of anything!ā Mary finished for her. āSo thatās all right! Now Iāll tell you all about it. It was gorgeous and deafening and teetotal. We could have lived a year on it. Iām not good at figures, but I calculated that if we lived six months on poor old Charlie and Ned and the station-wagon and the Victoria, we could manage at least twice as long on the cost of the housewarming. I think the orchids alone would have lasted us a couple of months. There they were, before me, but I couldnāt steal āem and sell āem, and soā āwell, so I did what I could!ā
She leaned back and laughed reassuringly to her troubled mother. āIt seemed to be a successā āwhat I could,ā she said, clasping her hands behind her neck and stirring the rocker to motion as a rhythmic accompaniment to her narrative. āThe girl Edith and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan, were too anxious about the effect of things on me. The fatherās worth a bushel of both of them, if they knew it. Heās what he is. I like him.ā She paused reflectively, continuing, āEdithās āinterestedā in that Lamhorn boy; heās good-looking and not stupid, but I think heāsā āā She interrupted herself with a cheery outcry: āOh! I mustnāt be calling him names! If heās trying to make Edith like him, I ought to respect him as a colleague.ā
āI donāt understand a thing youāre talking about,ā Mrs. Vertrees complained.
āAll the better! Well, heās a bad lot, that Lamhorn boy; everybodyās always known that, but the Sheridans donāt know the everybodies that know. He sat between Edith and Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan. Sheās like those people you wondered about at the theater, the last time we wentā ādressed in ball-gowns; bound to show their clothes and jewels somewhere! She flatters the father, and so did I, for that matterā ābut not that way. I treated him outrageously!ā
āMary!ā
āThatās what flattered him. After dinner he made the whole regiment of us follow him all over the house, while he lectured like a guide on the Palatine. He gave dimensions and costs, and the whole bāilinā of āem listened as if they thought he intended to make them a present of the house. What he was proudest of was the plumbing and that Bay of Naples panorama in the hall. He made us look at all the plumbingā ābathrooms and everywhere elseā āand then he made us look at the Bay of Naples. He said it was a hundred and eleven feet long, but I think itās more. And he led us all into the ready-made library to see a poem Edith had taken a prize with at school. Theyād had it printed in gold letters and framed in mother-of-pearl. But the poem itself was rather simple and wistful and niceā āhe read it to us, though Edith tried to stop him. She was modest about it, and said sheād never written anything else. And then, after a while, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan asked me to come across the street to her house with themā āher husband and Edith and Mr. Lamhorn and Jim Sheridanā āā
Mrs. Vertrees was shocked. āāāJimā!ā she exclaimed. āMary, pleaseā āā
āOf course,ā said Mary. āIāll make it as easy for you as I can, mamma. Mr. James Sheridan, Junior. We went over there, and Mrs. Roscoe explained that āthe men were all dying for a drink,ā though I noticed that Mr. Lamhorn was the only one near deathās door on that account. Edith and Mrs. Roscoe said they knew Iād been bored at the dinner. They were objectionably apologetic about it, and they seemed to think now we were going to have a āgood timeā to make up for it. But I hadnāt been bored at the dinner, Iād been amused; and the āgood timeā at Mrs. Roscoeās was horribly, horribly stupid.ā
āBut, Mary,ā her mother began, āisā āisā āā And she seemed unable to complete the question.
āNever mind, mamma. Iāll say it. Is Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, stupid? Iām sure heās not at all stupid about business. Otherwiseā āOh, what right have I to be calling people āstupidā because theyāre not exactly my kind? On the big dinner-table they had enormous icing models of the Sheridan Buildingā āā
āOh, no!ā Mrs. Vertrees cried. āSurely not!ā
āYes, and two other things of that kindā āI donāt know what. But, after all, I wondered if they were so bad. If Iād been at a dinner at a palace in Italy, and a relief or inscription on one of the old silver pieces had referred to some great deed or achievement of the family, I shouldnāt have felt superior; Iād have thought it picturesque and statelyā āIād have been impressed. And whatās the real difference? The icing is temporary, and thatās much more modest, isnāt it? And why is it vulgar to feel important more on account of something youāve done yourself than because of something one of your ancestors did? Besides, if we go back a few generations, weāve all got such hundreds of ancestors it seems idiotic to go picking out one or two to be proud of ourselves about. Well, then, mamma, I managed not to feel superior to Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, because he didnāt see anything out of place in the Sheridan Building in sugar.ā
Mrs. Vertreesās expression had lost none of its anxiety pending the conclusion of this lively bit of analysis, and she shook her head gravely. āMy dear, dear child,ā she said, āit seems to meā āIt looksā āIām afraidā āā
āSay as much of it as you can, mamma,ā said Mary, encouragingly. āI can get it,
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