The President - A novel

Alfred Henry Lewis

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• Publié par: thaec
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 15
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The President, by Alfred Henry Lewis This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The President A novel Author: Alfred Henry Lewis Release Date: June 13, 2006 [eBook #18572] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRESIDENT*** E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) The President A Novel by Author of "THE BOSS," "WOLFVILLE DAYS," ETC. NEW YORK A. S. BARNES AND COMPANY MDCCCCIV To ETHEL OVIATT LEWIS ACROSS THE SENATOR'S DESK CONTENTS CHAPTER I. HOW RICHARD BEGAN TO WOO CHAPTER II. HOW A PRESIDENT IS BRED CHAPTER III. HOW MR. GWYNN DINED WITH THE HARLEYS CHAPTER IV. HOW A SPEAKERSHIP WAS FOUGHT FOR CHAPTER V. HOW RICHARD WAS TAUGHT MANY THINGS CHAPTER VI. HOW STORRI HAD A VIVID IMAGINATION CHAPTER VII. HOW RICHARD GAINED IN KNOWLEDGE CHAPTER VIII. HOW STORRI WOOED MRS. HANWAY-HARLEY CHAPTER IX. HOW STORRI MADE AN OFFER OF HIS LOVE CHAPTER X. HOW STORRI PLOTTED A VENGEANCE CHAPTER XI. HOW MR. HARLEY FOUND HIMSELF A FORGER CHAPTER XII. HOW MR. FOPLING WAS INSPIRED CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE SAN REVE GAVE STORRI WARNING CHAPTER XIV. HOW THEY TALKED POLITICS AT MR. GWYNN'S CHAPTER XV. HOW RICHARD MET INSPECTOR VAL CHAPTER XVI. HOW RICHARD RECEIVED A LETTER CHAPTER XVII. HOW NORTHERN CONSOLIDATED WAS SOLD CHAPTER XVIII. HOW STORRI EXPLORED FOR GOLD CHAPTER XIX. HOW LONDON BILL TOOK A PAL CHAPTER XX. HOW STORRI FOOLISHLY WROTE A MESSAGE CHAPTER XXI. HOW THE GOLD CAME DOWN CHAPTER XXII. HOW THE SAN REVE KEPT HER STORRI CHAPTER XXIII. HOW RICHARD AND DOROTHY SAILED AWAY ILLUSTRATIONS ACROSS THE SENATOR'S DESK ONE OF THE MOST REVEREND OF THE SENATE WALRUSES AT THE DOOR OF THE CAUCUS ROOM IT WAS A KIND OF PRODIGY THAT ARTIST OF PURSUIT "SIT DOWN!" THUNDERED MR. HARLEY HE HELD HER CLOSE "IT'LL TAKE TWO MONTHS TO DIG THAT TUNNEL" THE PRESIDENT CHAPTER I HOW RICHARD BEGAN TO WOO On this far-away November morning, it being ten by every steeple clock and an hour utterly chaste, there could have existed no impropriety in one's having had a look into the rooms of Mr. Richard Storms, said rooms being second-floor front of the superfashionable house of Mr. Lorimer Gwynn, Washington, North West. Richard, wrapped to the chin in a bathrobe, was sitting much at his ease, having just tumbled from the tub. There was ever a recess in Richard's morning programme at this point during which his breakfast arrived. Pending that repast, he had thrown himself into an easy-chair before the blaze which crackled in the deep fireplace. The sudden sharp weather made the fire pleasant enough. The apartment in which Richard lounged, and the rooms to the rear belonging with it, were richly appointed. A fortune had been spilled to produce those effects in velvets and plushes and pictures and bronzes and crystals and chinas and lamps and Russia leathers and laces and brocades and silks, and as you walked the thick rugs you made no more noise than a ghost. It was Richard's caprice to have his environment the very lap of splendor, being as given to luxury as a woman. Against the pane beat a swirl and white flurry of snow, for winter broke early that year. Richard turned an eye of gray indolence on the window. The down-come of snow in no sort disquieted him; there abode a bent for winter in his blood, throughout the centuries Norse, that would have liked a Laplander. Even his love for pictures ran away to scenes of snow and wind-whipped wolds with drifts piled high. These, if well drawn, he would look at; while he turned his back on palms and jungles and things tropical in paint, the sight of which made him perspire like a harvest hand. As Richard's idle glance came back from the window, it caught the brown eyes of Mr. Pickwick considering him through a silvery, fringy thicket of hair. Mr. Pickwick was said to be royally descended; however that might have been, indubitably his pedigree harbored somewhere both a door-mat and a mop. "Rats!" observed Richard to Mr. Pickwick. Richard did not say this because it was true, but to show Mr. Pickwick that the ties which bound them were friendly. On his side, Mr. Pickwick, albeit he stood well aware how there was never a rat in the room, arose vivaciously and went snuffling and scuffling behind curtains and beneath sofas, and all in a mood prodigiously dire. The room being exhaustively searched, Mr. Pickwick came and sat by Richard, and with yelp and howl, and at intervals a little epileptic bark, proceeded to disparage all manners and septs of rats, and spake slightingly of all such vermin deer. Having freed his mind on the important subject of rats, Mr. Pickwick returned to silence and his cushion and curled up. Matzai, the Japanese valet, brought in the breakfast—steak, potatoes, eggs, toast, marmalade, and coffee. The deft Matzai placed the tray on the mahogany at Richard's elbow. Richard did not like a multiplicity of personal attendants. Of the score of souls within the walls of that house, Richard would meet only Mr. Gwynn and Matzai. This was as the wisdom of Solomon, since neglect is born of numbers. Mr. Lorimer Gwynn was a personage—clean and tall and slim and solemn and sixty years of age. He was as wholly English as Mr. Pickwick was wholly Skye, and exuded an indomitable respectability from his formal, shaven face. Rumor had it that Mr. Gwynn was fabulously rich. It was in June when Mr. Gwynn came to town and leased the house just vacated by Baron Trenk, late head of the Austrian diplomatic corps. This leasing of itself half established Mr. Gwynn in a highest local esteem; his being English did the rest, since in the Capital of America it is better, socially, to come from anywhere rather than from home. In addition to those advantages of Baron Trenk's house and an English emanation, Mr. Gwynn made his advent indorsed to the Washington banks by the Bank of England; also he was received by the British Ambassador, on whom he made a call of respect the moment he set foot in town. It became known that Mr. Gwynn was either widower or bachelor; and at that, coupled with his having taken a large house, the hope crept about that in the season he would entertain. The latter thought addressed