短篇小说

HABIT--a tendency or aptitude acquired by custom or frequent repetition.

The other day I ran across my old friend Ferguson Pogue. Pogue is a conscientious grafter of the highest type.

When I used to sell hardware in the West, I often "made" a little town called Saltillo, in Colorado. I was always certain of securing a small or a large order from Simon Bell, who kept a general store there.

On a summer's day, while the city was rocking with the din and red uproar of patriotism, Billy Casparis told me this story.

John Byrnes, hose-cart driver of Engine Company No. 99, was afflicted with what his comrades called Japanitis.

Down South whenever any one perpetrates some particularly monumental piece of foolishness every- body says: "Send for Jesse Holmes."

At the head of the insurgent party appeared that Hector and learned Theban of the southern republics, Don Sabas Placido.

The ranks of the Bed Line moved closer together; for it was cold. They were alluvial deposit of the stream of life lodged in the delta of Fifth Avenue and Broadway.

At the street corner, as solid as granite in the "rush-hour" tide of humanity, stood the Man from Nome. The Arctic winds and sun had stained him berry-brown. His eye still held the azure glint of the glaciers.

"As I have told you before," said Jeff Peters, "I never had much confidence in the perfidiousness of woman. As partners or coeducators in the most innocent line of graft they are not trustworthy."

On an east-bound train I went into the smoker and found Jefferson Peters, the only man with a brain west of the Wabash River who can use his cerebrum cerebellum, and medulla oblongata at the same time.

There are few Caliphesses. Women are Scheherazades by birth, predilection, instinct, and arrangement of the vocal cords.