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Strictly Business | O Henry | |
XVI. Compliments Of The Season |
Page 2 of 7 |
If Doctor Watson's investigating friend had been called in to solve this mysterious disappearance he might have observed on the Millionaire's wall a copy of "The Vampire." That would have quickly suggested, by induction, "A rag and a bone and a hank of hair." "Flip," a Scotch terrier, next to the rag-doll in the Child's heart, frisked through the halls. The hank of hair! Aha! X, the unfound quantity, represented the rag-doll. But, the bone? Well, when dogs find bones they--Done! It were an easy and a fruitful task to examine Flip's forefeet. Look, Watson! Earth--dried earth between the toes. Of course, the dog--but Sherlock was not there. Therefore it devolves. But topography and architecture must intervene. The Millionaire's palace occupied a lordly space. In front of it was a lawn close-mowed as a South Ireland man's face two days after a shave. At one side of it, and fronting on another street was a pleasuance trimmed to a leaf, and the garage and stables. The Scotch pup had ravished the rag-doll from the nursery, dragged it to a corner of the lawn, dug a hole, and buried it after the manner of careless undertakers. There you have the mystery solved, and no checks to write for the hypodermical wizard of fi'-pun notes to toss to the sergeant. Then let's get down to the heart of the thing, tiresome readers--the Christmas heart of the thing. Fuzzy was drunk--not riotously or helplessly or loquaciously, as you or I might get, but decently, appropriately, and inoffensively, as becomes a gentleman down on his luck. Fuzzy was a soldier of misfortune. The road, the haystack, the park bench, the kitchen door, the bitter round of eleemosynary beds-with-shower-bath-attachment, the petty pickings and ignobly garnered largesse of great cities--these formed the chapters of his history. |
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