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Active Service by Stephen Crane
Book, page 241 / 247


how he learned the glad tidings, but it is certain that
he learned them before luncheon. He told all the
visible employes of the hotel and allowed them to
know that the betrothal really had been his handi-work
He had arranged it. He did not make quite
clear how he had performed this feat, but at least he
was perfectly frank in acknowledging it.

When some of the students came down to luncheon,
they saw him but could not decide what ailed him.
He was in the main corridor of the hotel, grinning
from ear to ear, and when he perceived the students
he made signs to intimate that they possessed in com-
mon a joyous secret. " What's the matter with that
idiot?" asked Coke morosely. " Looks as if his
wheels were going around too fast."
Peter Tounley walked close to him and scanned
him imperturbably, but with care. " What's up,
Phidias ? " The man made no articulate reply. He
continued to grin and gesture. "Pain in oo tummy?
Mother dead? Caught the cholera? Found out
that you've swallowed a pair of hammered brass and
irons in your beer? Say, who are you, anyhow? "
But he could not shake this invincible glee, so he
went away.

The dragoman's rapture reached its zenith when
Coleman lent him to the professor and he was
commissioned to bring a carriage for four people to the
door at three o'clock. He himself was to sit on
the box and tell the driver what was required of
him. He dashed off, his hat in his hand, his hair flying,
puffing, important beyond everything, and apparently
babbling his mission to half the people he met
on the street. In most countries he would have
landed speedily in jail, but among a people who exist
on a basis of'jibbering, his violent gabble aroused no
suspicions as to his sanity. However, he stirred
several livery stables to their depths and set men running
here and there wildly and for the most part

 
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