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After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

pretend

How many times the word 'pretend' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

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How many times the word 'through' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

harridan

How many times the word 'harridan' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

head

How many times the word 'head' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

invitation

How many times the word 'invitation' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

antigua

How many times the word 'antigua' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

assist

How many times the word 'assist' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

traffic

How many times the word 'traffic' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

send

How many times the word 'send' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

seas

How many times the word 'seas' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

preferred

How many times the word 'preferred' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

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How many times the word 'below' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

treachery

How many times the word 'treachery' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

did

How many times the word 'did' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

india

How many times the word 'india' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

luck

How many times the word 'luck' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

passing

How many times the word 'passing' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

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How many times the word 'home' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

too

How many times the word 'too' appears in the text?

After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about 5000 or 6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes. I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, "Seignior," says he, "if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for any _cargaison_" (so they call it) "that you shall bring." I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart's content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah. I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver. When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred. This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also. However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half's absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out. As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations. And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before. It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him. I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind. Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too. Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, "He is certainly going to Jamaica;" others said, "He is going to trade with the Spaniards;" others that "He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;" some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest. The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near 1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage. I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish _barco longos_, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear. We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them. We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah. As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired. The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel. We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d'Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to the _ingenio_, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me. They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land. Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo--I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money. However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring. [Illustration: Colonel Jacque's arrival is announced] Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop's boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship--ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her. To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me. In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures--as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast. I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes. This was the best course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards' _barco longos_ and small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind--I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina. From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days. Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months 25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up. Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution--I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above 10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe. They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for. We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers. Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant's advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate. This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance. The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats. I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy--namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it. My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands. But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful. Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain. This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them. In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale--for so they called it--about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world. After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it. I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too. But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him. Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja--that is to say, in Old Castile. Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

corregidore

How many times the word 'corregidore' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

without

How many times the word 'without' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

noisy

How many times the word 'noisy' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

getting

How many times the word 'getting' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

demanded

How many times the word 'demanded' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

candles

How many times the word 'candles' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

such

How many times the word 'such' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

awfully

How many times the word 'awfully' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

hope

How many times the word 'hope' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

up

How many times the word 'up' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

stand

How many times the word 'stand' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

self

How many times the word 'self' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

said

How many times the word 'said' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

hat

How many times the word 'hat' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

great

How many times the word 'great' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

grunt

How many times the word 'grunt' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

need

How many times the word 'need' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

out

How many times the word 'out' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

peace

How many times the word 'peace' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

boots

How many times the word 'boots' appears in the text?

Alwynne, with sufficient point. Roger rose. "You'll excuse me, won't you? I've a busy morning ahead of me." He got up. But in spite of his protestations of haste he still stood at the table, fidgeting over his pile of circulars and seed catalogues, while he coughed the preliminary cough of a man who has something to say, and no idea of how to say it. Alwynne, meanwhile, had discovered the two letters that her napkin had hidden, and had neither ears nor eyes for him and his hesitations. Roger watched her gloomily as she opened the envelopes. The first enclosure was read and tossed aside quickly enough, but the other was evidently absorbing. He shrugged his shoulders at last, and, crossing the room, took his warmed boots from the hearth. The supporting tongs fell with a crash. Alwynne jumped. "Oh, Roger, you are noisy!" "Sorry," said Roger, but without conviction. She looked across at him with a hint of perturbation in her manner. She distrusted laconics. "I say--is anything the matter?" "Nothing whatever!" he assured her. "Why?" He bent over his boots. "I don't know. You're rather glum to-day, aren't you?" "Not at all," said Roger, with a dignity that was marred by the sudden bursting of his over-tugged bootlace. His ensuing exclamation was vigorous and not inaudible. Alwynne giggled. It is not easy to tie a knot in four-sided leather laces. She watched his struggles without excessive sympathy. Presently a neat twist of twine flicked through space and fell beside him. "'Just a little bit of string,'" murmured Alwynne flippantly. But getting no thanks, she returned to her letter. Roger fumbled in silence. "The Dears are late," remarked Alwynne at last, as she folded her sheets. "No--it's we who are early. I got down early on purpose. I thought you might be, too. I wanted----" he broke off abruptly. "Yes, I always wake up at daybreak when I'm excited," she said joyously. "Oh, Roger! How I'm looking forward to getting home! Clare says she may meet me--if she feels like it," she beamed. "Oh!" said Roger. Alwynne tapped her foot angrily. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Why on earth do you sit there and grunt at me like that? Why won't you talk? You're an absolute wet blanket--on my last morning. I wish The Dears would come down." "I think I hear them moving," he said, and stared at the ceiling. "I hope you do." Alwynne flounced from the table and picked up a paper. He stood looking at her--between vexation and amusement, and another sensation less easily defined. "Well, I must be off," he said at last. He got no answer. "Good-bye, Alwynne. Pleasant journey." Alwynne turned in a flash. "Good-bye? Aren't you coming to see me off?" she demanded blankly. He hesitated, looking back at her from the open window, one foot already on the terrace. "I'm awfully busy. It's market-day, you know--and the new stuff's coming in. The Dears will see you off." "Oh, all right." Alwynne was suddenly subdued. She held out a limp hand. He disregarded it. "Do you want me to come?" He spoke more cheerfully. "One always likes one's friends to see one off," she remarked sedately. "And meet one?" He glanced at the letter in her hand. "And meet one. Certainly." Her chin went up. "I hadn't to ask Clare. But you needn't come. Good-bye!" "Oh, I'm coming--now," he assured her, smiling. Alwynne's eyebrows went up. "But it's market-day, you know----" "Yes." "You're awfully busy." "Yes." "The new stuff's coming in." "Yes." "Are you coming, Roger?" "Yes, Alwynne." "Then, Roger dear--if you are coming, and it's no bother, and you can spare them, would you bring me a tiny bunch of your roses? Not for me--for Clare. She does love them so. Do, Roger!" "I'm hanged if I do," cried Roger, and went his wrathful way. But he did. A big bunch. More than enough for Clare. CHAPTER XXXVIII Alwynne was out of the train a dangerous quarter minute before it came to a standstill, and making for the bunch of violets that bloomed perennially in Elsbeth's bonnet. There followed a sufficiency of kissing. It was like a holiday home-coming, thought Alwynne, of not so very long ago. But not so long ago she would have been exclusively occupied with Elsbeth, and her luggage, and her forgotten compartment; would not have turned impatiently from her aunt to scan the length of the platform. Not a sign of Clare? And Clare had promised to meet her.... She prolonged as long as she might her business with porters and ticket collectors and outside-men, but Clare did not appear; and she left the station at last, at her aunt's side, sedately enough, with the edge off the pleasure of her home-coming. A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute. In spite of herself, however, something of bitterness crept into her next note to Roger Lumsden, who had inveigled her, she hardly knew how, into regular correspondence. Her remark that _Alwynne has been away ten days now_, was set down baldly, with no veiling sub-sentences of explanation or excuse. Had she but known it, however, she was not altogether just to Alwynne. The first hours of reunion did certainly drive her aunt out of Alwynne's mind, but after a couple of days she was ready to remind herself and Clare that Elsbeth, too, had some claim on her time. It is possible, however, that had she been happier, she would have been less readily scrupulous. Clare had certainly been glad to see her, had, for an hour or two, been entirely delightful. But with the resumption of their mutual life Clare was not long in falling back into her old bad ways, and in revenge for her two months' boredom, in sheer teasing high spirits at Alwynne's return, as well as in unreasoning, petulant jealousy, led Alwynne a pretty enough dance. For Clare was jealous, jealous of these eight weeks of Alwynne's youth that did not belong to her, and between her jealousy and her own contempt for her jealousy, was in one of the moods that she and Alwynne alike dreaded. The mornings at the school came as a relief to them both, but no sooner were they together again than Clare's pricking devil must out. Scenes were incessant--wanton, childish scenes. Yet Alwynne, sore and bewildered as she was by Clare's waxing unreasonableness, was yet not proof against the sudden surrenders that always contrived to put her in the wrong. She would repeat to herself that it must be she who was unreasonable, that she should be flattered rather than distressed, for instance, that Clare would not let her go home.... She would rather be with Clare than Elsbeth, wouldn't she? Of course! well, then!... Nevertheless she could not help wondering if any letters had come for her; if Elsbeth, expecting her daily, would bother to send them on.... Roger had promised to write.... She thought that really she ought to go home. But Clare would not hear of her leaving. Elsbeth wanted Alwynne? So did she. Didn't Elsbeth always have Alwynne? Surely Alwynne was old enough to be away from Elsbeth for a fortnight, without leave granted! Really, with all due respect to her, Alwynne's aunt was a regular Old Man of the Sea. "Clare!" Alwynne's tone had a hint of remonstrance. "Oh, I said 'with all respect.' But if she were not your aunt I should really be tempted to get rid of her--have you here altogether. You would like that, Alwynne, eh?" Alwynne refused to nod, but she laughed. "'Get rid'? Clare, don't be absurd." Clare looked at her, smiling, eyes narrowed in the old way. "Do you think I couldn't get rid of her if I wanted to? I always do what I set out to do. Look at Henrietta Vigers." Alwynne sat bolt upright. "Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?" "Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric button, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing. But Alwynne had no answering twinkle. "I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?" "She got in my way," said Clare indolently. Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing. "You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly." "_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek. But Alwynne was not to be pacified. "Clare--you didn't, did you?" "My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried." Alwynne shivered. "Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded." "In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her. But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----" Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun.... "Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go." Alwynne looked wicked. "Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _ la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now." "Who was he?" "Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was." "Did he shrug you out of existence?" "My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball." "Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively. Alwynne winced. "Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?" Clare yawned. "Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them." "I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them." Clare yawned again. "I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?" Alwynne's lips quivered. "Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. "Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr." "I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me." "But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?" Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the muffled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following. That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Saturday was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Saturday, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself. Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather. But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper. CHAPTER XXXIX Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy. But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away. Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again! Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate. But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth. They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why nobody had ever insisted on marrying her. Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" attitude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself. They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences. "I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her. Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression. She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs." "But I do." "No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy," her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!" She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together. When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kinship so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger." He laughed. "I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks." "Ah! the _cr pe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently. "I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me." He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love." "Have you told her so?" "Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white." "Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?" "Have I not!" "Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances." "Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool." "Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her r le is to be superior but tactful." He chuckled. "Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?" "She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fashion." "But you do think I have a chance?" "That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have." He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed. "Why not?" "Clare Hartill." "Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?" "I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years. Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well." "Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is na ve; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her god's feet, does she? 'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute." "I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne." "Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up." "You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go." "But if Alwynne were engaged to me?" "She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her." "But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friendship." "My dear Roger--marriage ends friendship automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share. You don't guess how jealous women are." Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment. "My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell." "Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion." "Hypnotism?" "Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often." "She's not married?" "She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone. Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it." "Does she repel you?" "Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men. And she's brilliantly clever." "So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?" "Alwynne? Never! She's as sound and sweet as an apple. But--and it means a good deal at her age--she's in abnormal hands. Clare Hartill is abnormal, spiritually perverse--and she's fastened on the child. They adore each other. It's terribly bad for Alwynne. As it is, it will take her months to shake off Clare's influence, even with you to help her. That is, if you succeed in detaching her. I'm useless, of course. Loving--just loving--is no good. You can only influence if you are strong enough to wound. I merely irritate. I'm weak. But you could do as you like, I believe. Take her away from that selfish woman, Roger! It's blighting her." "You think," he said, "that she would be content with me--with marriage as a career? Of course, Miss Hartill's right about her talents." "Alwynne? I don't think--I know. All her gifts are so much surface show; she's a very simple child underneath. Content? Can't you see her, Roger--with children? Her own babies?" Roger beamed. "It's rather a jolly prospect. Well, I must take my chance." "Of course, you must wait; it's too soon yet. Even later, if Clare really wants her--wants her enough to suppress her own perverse impulses--I'm afraid you've little chance. But it's possible that she will not want her as much as that." "I don't follow." "I mean that Clare, with that impish nature of hers, may hurt Alwynne." "I should think she has already, often enough." "Yes--but Alwynne has never realised it, never realised that it was deliberate. She is always so sure that it was her fault somehow. If once she found out that Clare was hurting her for--for the fun of it, you know--for the pleasure of watching her suffer--as I'm sure she does--it might end everything. Alwynne hates cruelty. That poor child's death shook her. A little more, and she will be disillusioned." "But loyal still?" "Probably. But the glamour would be gone. She would be extremely unhappy. There your chance would come. Though I don't think Clare will give it you--for I believe Alwynne does mean more to her than most things. But she's an unaccountable person: there is the chance." "I see," Roger rose and straightened himself. "Practically I'm not to depend on my own--attractions--at all." He laughed a little. "I am to watch the whims of this--this unpleasant school-marm, and be grateful to her for forcing Alwynne to prefer my deep sea to her devil. The situation is hardly dignified." Elsbeth laughed too. "Love is always undignified, Roger. What does it matter if you want her?" But she watched him anxiously as he walked to the window, and stood staring out. There was a silence. At last he turned-- "Elsbeth, dear, it's a beautiful scheme, and a woman could carry it through, I daresay--but it's no good to me. It's too--too tortuous, too feminine. I don't mean anything rude. It's merely that I'm not--subtle enough, or patient. At least, I haven't got that cat-and-mouse kind of patience. I can wait, you know. That's different. I can wait all right. But I can't intrigue." Elsbeth flushed. "There is no intrigue. It's a question of understanding Alwynne and of using the opportunity when it comes." "To trick and surprise and over-persuade her into caring for me! It's no good, Elsbeth. It isn't possession I want--it's Alwynne. Can't you see? We should neither of us be happy. She would always distrust me and remember that I'd taken an advantage. I should end by hating her, I believe. Can't you see?" Elsbeth was shaken by her own thoughts. "I see," she said finally. "And I see that you don't love her--or you'd take her on any terms." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well, I wouldn't. And I do love her. But I want Alwynne on my terms. Do I sound an awful prig? Cousin Elsbeth, hear my way! I'm going to have it out with Alwynne." "At once?" "At once. As soon as I see her--no beating about the bush." "Roger--she may be utterly out of the mood." "Hang moods! I beg your pardon, Elsbeth. But I'm going to tell her--certain things. If she doesn't like it I'm going back to Dene. She'll know where to find me when she changes her mind. Elsbeth, don't look so hopeless." "You don't understand Alwynne." "I don't want to understand her--I want to marry her. I must stick to my own way. Can't you conceive that all this consideration, all this deference to moods and dissection of motives, this horribly feminine atmosphere that she seems to have lived in, of subtleties, and reservations, and simulations--may be bad for her? It seems to me that she's always being thought about. You, with your anxious affection--that unholy woman with her lancet and probe--you neither of you leave her alone for a second. She's always being touched. Well, I'm going to leave her alone. It gives her a chance." "I've never spoiled her." Elsbeth was off at a tangent. "I'm sure of it. I can remember Father holding you up to Mother once. He said you were the most judicious woman with children that he knew." "Did he?" said Elsbeth. "Mother was awfully annoyed." Roger chuckled. "I'd been bawling for my fourth doughnut--and got it." "I've never spoiled Alwynne," repeated Elsbeth tonelessly. "No one could," remarked Roger with conviction. Elsbeth looked up and laughed at him. "So you are human!" she said. "I was beginning to doubt it." "When I get on the subject of Alwynne's adorableness----" he laughed back at her, "we're obviously cousins, aren't

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

practically

How many times the word 'practically' appears in the text?

Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

boyfriend

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Analyze This Script at IMSDb. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3785444-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) The web's largest movie script resource! Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

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Search IMSDb Alphabetical # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Genre Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Drama Family Fantasy Film-Noir Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Short Thriller War Western Sponsor TV Transcripts Futurama Seinfeld South Park Stargate SG-1 Lost The 4400 International French scripts Movie Software Rip from DVD Rip Blu-Ray Latest Comments Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens10/10 Batman Begins9/10 Collateral10/10 Jackie Brown8/10 Movie Chat Message Yell ! ALL SCRIPTS ANALYZE THIS Screenplay by PETER TOLAN and HAROLD RAMIS and KENNETH LONERGAN Story by KENNETH LONERGAN and PETER TOLAN July 1998 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 1 CREDITS BEGIN OVER BLACK. 1 DOMINIC MANETTA a man in his 70s, narrates nostalgically OVER a MONTAGE of related news photos. MANETTA (V.O.) 1957 was a big year. The Russians put that Sputnik into outer space, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, 'that guy' shot Frank Costello in the head, and missed, and the Gallo brothers whacked Albert Anastasia in that barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel. It was total chaos. With Anastasia gone, Vito Genovese figures he's king shit, but Carlo Gambino and 'Joe Bananas' both want to be boss of all bosses. So they call a meeting -- a big meeting. 2 EXT. UPSTATE NEW YORK - DAY 2 CREDITS CONTINUE. In FADED 16mm documentary-style, we see a country road winding through rolling hills. At the top of the hill, a black '57 Cadillac appears and sweeps through the peaceful landscape. MANETTA (V.O.) It was the first time the whole commission was ever gonna meet face to face. Bosses and wiseguys were comin' in from all over the country, and all the New York families, too -- maybe sixty bosses, the whole wiseguy world -- all headin' toward this little town upstate to figure out what's what. 3 EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY 3 A sign reads, "Entering Apalachin - pop. 342." The black Cadillac speeds past the sign, then another black Caddy, then a black Lincoln, then another Caddy, a Lincoln, etc. MANETTA (V.O.) Your father and me, we were goin' up with Tommy D., Fat Tommy. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 2. 3 CONTINUED: 3 MANETTA (V.O.CONT'D) He was running the family at the time. Anyway, I don't know what anybody was thinking, but some asshole thought it would be a good idea to have this meeting at Joe Babara's farm in the country where nobody would notice. 4 EXT. RURAL GAS STATION - DAY 4 A local state police deputy is gassing up his motorcycle when the parade of shiny black cars rolls by. He looks up and scratches his head at the unusual sight. MANETTA (V.O.) Turns out the local cops were watching Joe Babara like a hawk. So now you got about fifty Caddies and Lincolns pullin' into Apalachin and some deputy sheriff with cow shit on his shoes notices all the traffic and calls the Feds. 5 EXT. JOE BABARA'S ESTATE - DAY 5 The Caddies and Lincolns are all parked around a rambling country manor. Bosses and wiseguys are meeting and greeting each other on the big front porch. One WISEGUY is trying to shoo a cow away from his car. WISEGUY You wanna be a ribeye? Get away from the fuckin' car. 6 EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME 6 Federal agents start moving in quietly, heavily-armed, wearing big FBI arm bands. MANETTA (V.O.) The meeting never even got started. The Feds moved in -- 7 EXT. HOUSE - DAY 7 Agents with weapons drawn charge the house and start breaking down the front door. 3. 8 EXT. BACK OF HOUSE - SAME TIME 8 MANETTA (V.O.) -- and we moved out. Gangsters in shiny suits are squeezing through windows and leaping off balconies. WIDE - WISEGUYS fleeing into the surrounding woods and fields. MANETTA (V.O.) Your papa and me hid in a field with hay or corn, some kinda foliage, I don't know. 9 EXT. FARM FIELD - DAY 9 Two wiseguys in suits crouch in the tall grass. Suddenly they see a John Deere harvester bearing down on them. MANETTA (V.O.) Then along comes this farmer who almost runs us over in a tractor, so your father hauls out his piece, this .44 cannon he used to carry, and hijacks the goddamn tractor. Funniest fuckin' thing I ever saw. 10 EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 10 The farmer goes flying off the harvester and the two wiseguys drive off on it. The farmer looks up to see the John Deere disappear in a swirling cloud of dust that FILLS the SCREEN. END CREDITS. DISSOLVE TO: 11 SWIRLING CLOUD OF CREAM 11 on top of an espresso. PULL BACK as a hand reaches in and runs a lemon rind along the rim of the cup. The espresso is picked up and sipped by MANETTA, the aging boss of a prominent New York crime family. (CONTINUED) 4. 11 CONTINUED: 11 INT. RITZ CLAM BOX - LATE AFTERNOON (PRESENT) The place is nearly empty. Manetta is talking to PAUL VITTI, a dark, intense, intelligent man in his late forties, and a powerful boss in his own right. MANETTA Anyway, Carlo Gambino came out of it capo de tutti capi, and that was the last time the whole commission tried to meet -- until now. VITTI (brooding) I don't know. I don't like it. What do we need a meeting for? Let everybody worry about their own business. They finish eating. MANETTA The '57 meeting was about how we were going to divide up the whole country. This meeting is about how we're gonna survive. You got 'made' guys informing for the Feds; bosses going to jail; everybody's dealing drugs; people are getting whacked without permission. And on top of everything, now we got the Chinese Triads and these crazy Russians to deal with. Everything's changing. We need a leader. Someone with fresh ideas. Someone like you. It's gonna be a new century, Paul. We gotta change with the times. VITTI What are we gonna get, a fuckin' web site? MANETTA You remember what else happened in 1957, Paul? VITTI Yeah, I remember. MANETTA When your father died, I promised him I'd always look out for you. Come to the meeting. (CONTINUED) 5. 11 CONTINUED: (2) 11 They get up to leave. Vitti drops some money on the table. Bodyguards follow them to the door. The waiters and the owner bow to them as they pass. They are almost out the door when Vitti hesitates. VITTI Wait a second. I'm just gonna grab a toothpick. The instant he steps back inside, Manetta and his bodyguard are struck by an incredible VOLLEY of GUNFIRE, which BLOWS OUT all the GLASS in the DOOR and WINDOWS. Vitti's bodyguard, JELLY, grabs him and throws him behind the counter, shielding him with his body. Outside, the shooting has stopped and curious bystanders are looking in the broken windows. Vitti's eyes well up with tears. CUT TO: 12 KLEENEX 12 being pulled out of a box. CAROLINE, a woman in her early thirties, dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She's sitting on the couch in -- INT. BEN'S OFFICE - SAME TIME The office is warm, comfortable, and nicely decorated. CAROLINE (weepy) I kept telling him that I needed room to grow and find myself as a person. Not just as a woman but as an independent entity. BEN SOBOL her therapist, seems to be listening intently. CAROLINE I told him I needed to get in touch with my uniqueness, but he couldn't handle that. He said I was driving him away. Do you think I was driving him away, Dr. Sobol? Ben leans forward sympathetically. (CONTINUED) 6. 12 CONTINUED: 12 He's in his mid-forties, has an expressive face and a quick wit, and despite the occasional lapse, he is a gifted and caring psychologist. BEN Things end, Caroline. That's just a part of life. It's how we deal with things ending that's important. CAROLINE I just can't believe it's over between me and Steve. Maybe there's still hope. BEN Well, he did take out a restraining order against you. I have to be honest, that's usually not a good sign. CAROLINE But what should I do? BEN Well, Caroline, I think the first thing you have to do... (voice rising) ... is stop whining about this pathetic loser! You're a tragedy queen! (mocking) 'Steve doesn't respect me. Steve doesn't love me anymore.' Who gives a shit! Get a fucking life! You are, without a doubt, the most boring human being I have ever met! Please, say something interesting before I lapse into a goddamn coma! Caroline looks curiously at Ben, unperturbed. CAROLINE Dr. Sobol? BEN Lost in his fantasy, not really listening. He comes to attention and tries to cover. (CONTINUED) 7. 12 CONTINUED: (2) 12 BEN Yes. Yes. I was just reflecting on your whole -- situation. It's very interesting what you were just saying. I want you to think about it, and I'm going to think about it, so we'll both think about it and we'll continue next week when I get back from my vacation. Caroline bursts into tears again. BEN Or not. CUT TO: 13 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY 13 Ben rushes upstairs and into his bedroom. His 14-year-old son MICHAEL is in his room putting on a tuxedo. MICHAEL You're late. BEN (changing hurriedly) I know. I couldn't get rid of my last patient. I think she was a tick in a past life. MICHAEL Yeah, what's Caroline's problem? Your boyfriend's gone, he hates your guts, get over it. BEN Michael! What did I tell you? You can't listen to my sessions! It's private stuff. MICHAEL I can't help it. I hear you through the vent in my room. BEN Funny how that happens when you lie on the floor and put your ear up against it. (CONTINUED) 8. 13 CONTINUED: 13 MICHAEL Okay, okay. How's that guy who dreams about shitting trout? BEN (entering, putting on his tux shirt) Fine. He moved up to striped bass. Put on your cummerbund. Boy, have you grown. Did your mother move next door to a nuclear power plant? MICHAEL (struggling with the cummerbund) Why do we have to wear rented clothes to Grandpa's party? This blows. BEN (helping him) We have to dress up because Grandpa can't have a good time unless everyone else is extremely uncomfortable. (looks at Michael and makes a quick decision) Forget the tux. Regular clothes. Ben exits, pulling off the tux shirt. MICHAEL (taking off his tux shirt) Are you ambivalent about Grandpa Isaac? BEN (O.S.) (from his room) Ambivalent? Where do you get that stuff? MICHAEL Mom. BEN (annoyed) She's not supposed to do that, you know. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 9. 13 CONTINUED: (2) 13 BEN (CONT'D) Your mother and I, when we got divorced, we agreed we wouldn't put you in the middle, or use you as a go-between to talk about each other. So just do me a favor and tell your mother to shut her big mouth. (comes back into Michael's room) Did she say anything about me getting married again? I think she could be feeling a little anger about it. MICHAEL Oh, yeah. She really cares. She says you're intimidated by women your own age, and that's why you go for these young babes. BEN (fuming) Okay. Listen, for two seconds, pretend I'm not your father. I'm just some guy, okay? MICHAEL You gonna vent? BEN Yeah. (venting) I hate her! I really hate her! (a beat, then brightly) Okay. Dad again. Let's go. CUT TO: 14 EXT. WAREHOUSE - SAME TIME 14 Paul Vitti gets out of his car and walks to the warehouse with his most trusted soldier, Jelly, a hulking bruiser, and his sidekick JIMMY, a tightly-wound ferret with chips on both shoulders. VITTI So what did you find out? (CONTINUED) 10. 14 CONTINUED: 14 JELLY (as they walk) The word is Primo Sindone must have ordered it, but, uh -- He hesitates. VITTI What? Jelly looks at Jimmy. VITTI What? JELLY (reluctantly) A lot of people think you set him up. VITTI Why the fuck would I want to kill Dominic? He was like a father to me. JELLY So you could be the big boss. Everybody figures you're lookin' to wipe out the competition before the big meeting. VITTI Oh, is that what they figure? JELLY It's alright with me if you did -- VITTI I didn't kill him! I told you that! Don't you hear? CUT TO: 14A INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 14A They enter a room where other Vitti family soldiers, EDDIE COKES, TUNA, and JOHNNY BIGS are waiting. In the middle of the room, a young rat named NICKY SHIVERS is tied to a chair under a strong overhead light. When he speaks, we get a hint of mental incompetence. (CONTINUED) 11. 14A CONTINUED: 14A NICKY Please, Mr. Vitti, I told 'em I don't know anything but they don't believe me 'cause that one time I said Little Joe hit Dukey and it turned out he didn't but I didn't know because -- JIMMY (smacks him) Shut the fuck up! Nicky goes suddenly quiet. He watches in terror as Jimmy steps aside and Vitti moves close holding a short length of lead pipe. VITTI Nicky, you know me, right? NICKY Yeah. You're Mr. Vitti. VITTI And you know what I'm gonna do to you if you lie to me, right? NICKY Uh, you're gonna crack me on the head with that pipe? JIMMY (slaps him) It's a rhetorical question, you fuckin' idiot. VITTI I'm only gonna ask you this one time. Who killed Dominic Manetta? NICKY I don't know. VITTI (roars) Don't fuckin' lie to me! NICKY (in tears) Honest to God, I don't know! VITTI You little rat bastard... (CONTINUED) 12. 14A CONTINUED: (2) 14A Vitti winds up to brain him with the pipe. They all wince in anticipation of the blow. But Vitti just freezes there with his arm upraised. Then he drops his arm and seems to sag. VITTI Forget about it. He doesn't know anything. He tosses the pipe aside. VITTI Get him outta here. Jimmy looks at Jelly in surprise. 15 INT. MINIVAN - LATER 15 Ben is driving to the party with Michael. Sitting in stopped traffic, he checks his mirrors anxiously. BEN (to himself, urgently) Look at this. Everybody's nuts. Ooh, I hate walking into that house late. MICHAEL I think you're reacting like this because you're mad we have to go to this party. BEN No. Don't. I'm not going to be analyzed by someone who up until a few years ago believed in Santa. Sorry, but we only have room for one Dr. Sobol in this family. MICHAEL But there's two Dr. Sobols. There's you and Grandpa. BEN (a beat) Can we talk about something else? MICHAEL Are you going to read Grandpa's new book? Mom says you won't because you're... (CONTINUED) 13. 15 CONTINUED: 15 BEN Does your mother talk about anything else or is it just me twenty-four hours a day? Wham! Ben REAR-ENDS the CAR in front of them. BEN That's your mother's fault! Your mother did that! Damn! CUT TO: 16 EXT. EAST 90TH STREET - NIGHT 16 The minivan has rear-ended a black Lincoln Town Car. The trunk has sprung open and Nicky Shivers can be seen in the trunk, bound and gagged, kicking and squirming. Muffled shouts can be heard through the duct tape over his mouth. Jelly and Jimmy jump out of the Lincoln and slam the top of the trunk just as Ben gets out of the minivan to inspect the damage. JIMMY (heading Ben off) What's the matter with you? Are you some kind of moron? BEN I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. Ben looks at the damage. The Lincoln has gotten the worst of it. The rear bumper is hanging off, and Jelly is struggling to latch the trunk. JIMMY Did you see anything? BEN I was talking to my son. I took my eyes off the road -- JIMMY Forget that bullshit. Did you see anything? Jelly steps in to defuse the situation, warning Jimmy off with a look. (CONTINUED) 14. 16 CONTINUED: 16 JELLY That's all right, sir. It's our fault for being in front of you like that. BEN (surprised) Well, I should have been watching. Let me give you my insurance information -- JELLY It's okay. Forget about it. BEN Really? It looks like your whole rear end might be screwed up. Jimmy is reattaching the rear bumper and securing the trunk lid with duct tape. JELLY No, it was like that before. BEN Maybe we should call the police? JELLY (suddenly menacing) Why? Fuck the police. BEN Right! Fuck 'em. HORNS start HONKING behind them. BEN At least take my card. You might look at the damage in the morning and change your mind. Jelly takes the card and reads it. JELLY You're a doctor? BEN Ph.D. Psychologist. JELLY A shrink. You talk to a lotta nuts, huh? Ben hears KICKING from inside the car trunk. (CONTINUED) 15. 16 CONTINUED: (2) 16 JELLY Pings and knocks. Cheap gas. Hey, how do those minivans handle? JIMMY (O.S.) Jelly! Let's go! JELLY Take it easy, Doc. Ben looks totally confused as Jelly hustles back to his car. CUT TO: 17 INT. SOBOL HOME - LIVING ROOM - ISAAC SOBOL 17 Ben's father, at the piano in the spacious, elegant, tastefully-decorated living room, surrounded by adoring guests, playing and singing an exuberant rendition of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Isaac is a silver- haired patrician, overloaded with self-esteem. ISAAC (ending the sing- along) All right, neurotics only! Well, you must have been a beautiful ba-a-by, 'cause baby look at you now, thank God for Prozac, baby look at you now! BEN AND MICHAEL standing off to the side talking to Ben's mother DOROTHY. In the corner is a large advertising display featuring Isaac's smiling picture on the front cover of his new book, Tell Me What You Feel, Tell Me What You Want. BEN What do you mean you're not coming? It's my wedding. DOROTHY We understand it's a special day for you, Benny, but your father and I can't just pick up and leave town every time you decide to get married. (CONTINUED) 16. 17 CONTINUED: 17 BEN Every time? This is a once-in-a- -- twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Isaac joins them. BEN Dad, you're not coming to my wedding? ISAAC We want to be there, but I have three book signings next weekend. I can't piss off these big book stores. If I cancel, they'll stick me down on the bottom shelf. That's how they are. BEN Yeah, that's the word on the street. The self-help book business is full of vindictive pricks. DOROTHY (looking around) Ben! The language. BEN I'm sorry, but I've been alone for eight years, now I've finally met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and I would really like you to meet her before we get married. You're going to be her family. I think it's better she knows that up front. ISAAC You're really hostile tonight. BEN I'm joking. DOROTHY (jumping in) I think I'll go talk to the mayor. BEN The mayor's here? DOROTHY I can only hope. (CONTINUED) 17. 17 CONTINUED: (2) 17 Dorothy exits. ISAAC What's wrong? BEN Nothing. Everything's fine. ISAAC How's your practice? BEN It's great. Just great. I've got some very interesting patients -- extremely interesting. Fascinating actually. MICHAEL Dad has a patient who dreams he shits trout. BEN Thanks, Mike. ISAAC Excuse us, Michael. Isaac pulls Ben into the foyer. ISAAC Why are you wasting your time out there in the boondocks? New York City is the Mecca of Madness. BEN I'm just not sure I could spend my life dealing with people whose biggest crisis is how to fire the maid. ISAAC It beats a guy with an ass full of flounder. BEN Trout! And don't minimize my practice. ISAAC Why are you getting so defensive? This is about your own feelings of inadequacy. (CONTINUED) 18. 17 CONTINUED: (3) 17 BEN You always turn it back on me. Why do you do that? ISAAC Why do you think I do that? BEN Why do you think I think you do that? Go ahead, now you ask me why I think you think I think you do that. ISAAC Enough. I want you to think about what I said. And when you're ready to talk to me like a normal person, I'll be at the piano with Regis Philbin. (as he crosses away) Rege! REGIS PHILBIN I'm not singing, Isaac! ISAAC Now, ladies and gentlemen, at the piano, Regis Philbin! Applause and laughter from the guests. Ben grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. BEN (to the waiter) Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again -- because your parents still live there. CUT TO: 18 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - NIGHT 18 Vitti's men converse quietly while a soldier sweeps the room for bugs. He gives the "all clear" and SALVATORE MASIELLO, the old consigliere, speaks. MASIELLO The Manetta family is asking a lot of questions. They think we hit Dominic. CARLO MANGANO, the burly underboss of the Vitti family, jumps in. (CONTINUED) 19. 18 CONTINUED: 18 MANGANO Forget Dominic! They were after Paul. (to Vitti) It's a miracle you survived. I thank God. VITTI Yeah, thank God. All I know is if I didn't have some veal stuck in my teeth, I'd be laying there with Dominic. JOHNNY BIGS This is all about the big meeting. Primo Sindone wants to run the whole show. MANGANO Yeah, but Primo's a boss. He knows the rules. He couldn't go after Dominic and Paul unless the other families gave their permission. VITTI (starting to sweat) If they did, we're heading for one big fuckin' war. (having trouble breathing) Talk to Zello and Baldassare. Find out what you can. We got two weeks. If the other New York bosses are against us, I want to know it before I walk into that meeting. He feels a stabbing pain in his chest. MANGANO You all right, Paul? You don't look good. VITTI I'm a little choked up here. I gotta get some air. He walks outside. Jelly follows. Mangano looks quizzically after them. CUT TO: 20. 19 EXT. OUTSIDE THE OLD LION - CONTINUOUS ACTION 19 Vitti is having trouble breathing. JELLY You feel all right? VITTI I feel like shit. This whole thing is like a huge fuckin' headache. JELLY (concerned) You havin' one of those mindgrains? Sweating profusely now, Vitti feels another stabbing chest pain. VITTI Get the car. CUT TO: 20 INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - LATER 20 Vitti is putting on his shirt. He looks considerably better. Jelly is sitting down, tapping his own knee with the little rubber hammer. Nothing moves. DOCTOR SHULMAN, a young cardiology resident, enters. DOCTOR Good news, Mr. Evans. Your heart is just fine. VITTI How could it be fine? I've had like eight heart attacks in the last three weeks. DOCTOR Well, based on everything, I'd say you probably had an anxiety attack. VITTI (a beat) What? DOCTOR An anxiety attack. A panic attack. I can give you some Xanax if it happens again soon -- (CONTINUED) 21. 20 CONTINUED: 20 VITTI (menacing) Look at me. Do I look like a guy who panics? DOCTOR (nervous now) There's nothing -- I mean -- it's a common thing -- VITTI Where did you go to medical school? I had a heart attack, you quack bastard. DOCTOR (very scared now) Well, not according to these -- As Vitti moves toward the Doctor, Jelly instinctively grabs the Doctor from behind and holds him while Vitti wraps the blood pressure cuff around his neck. VITTI (low and deadly, pumping up the cuff with the squeeze-ball) Listen to me, jerk-off. I had a mild heart attack and now it's over. You understand? The Doctor nods vigorously, his eyes bugging out as the pressure around his neck increases. VITTI If anyone asks you, you never saw me, and I was never here. Is that clear? DOCTOR (strangled) Yes. VITTI Good. (to Jelly) Take the chart. Jelly releases the Doctor, grabs all the papers and follows Vitti out the door. CUT TO: 22. 21 EXT. HOSPITAL - MOMENTS LATER 21 Vitti and Jelly come walking out the emergency room exit. Vitti stops. VITTI Jelly, I need you to do something for me as my friend. JELLY Anything. VITTI You have to find me a doctor. JELLY We just came from the doctor. VITTI Not that kind of doctor. I need a head doctor. JELLY You're gonna change your face like Sonny Black? Don't get his nose though, he looks like a pig. VITTI Not a plastic surgeon, ya spoostud. Do I have to spell everything out? JELLY It saves time. VITTI I need you to find me a psychiatrist. JELLY Wow. This is like the Psychic Network or something. I just ran into a psychiatrist. Actually he ran into me. VITTI Is he any good? JELLY Yeah, he seemed like a smart guy. He had a business card and everything -- VITTI He had a card? That's a real fuckin' achievement. (CONTINUED) 23. 21 CONTINUED: 21 JELLY What do you need a shrink for anyway? VITTI It's not for me. It's for a friend. This friend is having some problems, so I'm going to ask the shrink some questions and get some answers for my friend. JELLY Got it. VITTI And nobody can know. If anyone hears I'm talking to a shrink, it could be interpreted the wrong way. You know what I mean? JELLY Of course. Absolutely. (then) Can I ask you one thing? VITTI What? JELLY This friend. Is it me? CUT TO: 22 INT. BEN'S OFFICE - DAY 22 Ben is with a patient, CARL ANDERSON, a high-strung milquetoast in his late forties. BEN Carl, I'm detecting a pattern here. You seem to settle too easily for things. CARL You're right. I do. BEN No, well, there you go. You just did it again. I suggested something and you immediately agreed. (CONTINUED) 24. 22 CONTINUED: 22 CARL You're right. I did. BEN Why do you think you do that? CARL I don't know. BEN Well, sometimes people do it because they fear rejection or disapproval, but you can't let that worry you, Carl. And you can't agree with things just for the sake of agreeing. Stand your ground. Don't let people roll over you. The door opens and Jelly enters. JELLY Dr. Sobol? BEN Excuse me! I'm in a session here. JELLY Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. BEN You're... You're one of the guys I rear-ended the other night. JELLY Bingo. (to Carl) Get outta here. Jelly takes Carl by the elbow and lifts him off the couch. JELLY Upsa-daisy. You got a coat, nutbar? BEN What are you doing? JELLY He's leaving. (CONTINUED) 25. 22 CONTINUED: (2) 22 BEN The hell he is. He's not going anywhere until we're done with his session. Jelly pulls a big roll of bills out of his pocket, removes the rubber band, and peels off a couple of fifties. JELLY (to Carl) I'll give you a hundred bucks to get out of here. Carl looks at the money, then he gives Ben a plaintive look. BEN Don't take it, Carl. Carl looks back to Jelly. JELLY (peeling off another bill) A hundred and fifty. BEN He's not leaving. CARL (trembling) Three hundred. JELLY (pays him) You're not that fuckin' crazy. Carl takes the money, gives Ben the thumbs up and exits. Jelly follows him to the door and waves for someone to come in. BEN Listen, if you're upset about your car, I can understand that. But you don't just barge in here -- Paul Vitti steps into the office. Ben freezes. Jelly crosses to take Vitti's coat. VITTI You know who I am? (CONTINUED) 26. 22 CONTINUED: (3) 22 BEN Yes. VITTI No you don't. BEN Okay. VITTI You've seen my picture in the papers? BEN Yes. And no. Sometimes. Never. VITTI Jelly, wait outside. Jelly exits. Vitti walks around the room, taking everything in. He picks up the phone and listens. Hangs up. VITTI Sit down. BEN Sure. Ben sits quickly on the coffee table. He crushes a box of tissues, then moves them out from under his ass. Vitti picks up a stack of CDS and looks through them. VITTI Tony Bennett, huh? BEN Yeah. He's my favorite. Vitti picks up an autographed baseball bat from Ben's desk. BEN (puts up his hands) Mr. Vitti, I tried to give the guy my insurance information, but he wouldn't take it. Seriously, I tried several times because it was all my please don't kill me. VITTI I was just gonna ask if you liked baseball. (CONTINUED) 27. 22 CONTINUED: (4) 22 BEN Yes. Big Yankee fan. Vitti puts the bat down. BEN Mr. Vitti. Not that it's your fault, but your friend, he interrupted a patient's session and that's -- not good. I think this is a matter for our insurance companies, don't you think? VITTI I don't care about the car. BEN Then what -- ? VITTI A friend of mine is having a problem and he might have to see a shrink, so I'm going to

politely

How many times the word 'politely' appears in the text?

And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

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And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

sons

How many times the word 'sons' appears in the text?

And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

permutations

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And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

greatest

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And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

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And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

trophies

How many times the word 'trophies' appears in the text?

And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

rail

How many times the word 'rail' appears in the text?

And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

ronald

How many times the word 'ronald' appears in the text?

And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

wars

How many times the word 'wars' appears in the text?

And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

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And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

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And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

conceal

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And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

heard

How many times the word 'heard' appears in the text?

And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

o'clock

How many times the word 'o'clock' appears in the text?

And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

conduct

How many times the word 'conduct' appears in the text?

And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

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And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

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And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

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And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

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And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too. A discontented nation, and by far Harder to rule in times of peace than war: Easily set together by the ears, And full of causeless jealousies and fears: Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel, And never are contented when they're well. No Government could ever please them long, Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue: In this to ancient Israel well compared, Eternal murmurs are among them heard. It was but lately that they were oppressed, Their rights invaded, and their laws suppressed: When nicely tender of their liberty, Lord! what a noise they made of slavery. In daily tumult showed their discontent, Lampooned the King, and mocked his Government. And if in arms they did not first appear, 'Twas want of force, and not for want of fear. In humbler tone than English used to do, At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue. William, the great successor of Nassau, Their prayers heard and their oppressions saw: He saw and saved them; God and him they praised, To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised. But, glutted with their own felicities, They soon their new deliverer despise; Say all their prayers back, their joy disown, Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down; Their harps of praise are on the willows hung, For Englishmen are ne'er contented long. The reverend clergy, too! Who would have thought | That they, who had such non-resistance taught, > Should e'er to arms against their prince be brought, | Who up to Heaven did regal power advance, Subjecting English laws to modes of France, Twisting religion so with loyalty, As one could never live and t'other die. And yet no sooner did their prince design Their glebes and perquisites to undermine, But, all their passive doctrines laid aside, The clergy their own principles denied; Unpreached their non-resisting cant, and prayed To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church's safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they'd done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They're Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can't defend. Pretend they'd not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say 'tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution's a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James's abdication. But if he did the subjects' rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power's so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, | And lawless power against their oaths maintain, > Then subjects must have reason to complain. | If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince Is wilful treason in the largest sense; And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and king, and former oaths defy. If we allow no maladministration Could cancel the allegiance of the nation, Let all our learned sons of Levi try This ecclesiastic riddle to untie: How they could make a step to call the prince, And yet pretend to oaths and innocence? By the first address they made beyond the seas, They're perjured in the most intense degrees; And without scruple for the time to come May swear to all the kings in Christendom. And truly did our kings consider all, They'd never let the clergy swear at all; Their politic allegiance they'd refuse, For whores and priests do never want excuse. But if the mutual contract were dissolved, The doubts explained, the difficulties solved, That kings, when they descend to tyranny, Dissolve the bond and leave the subject free, The government's ungirt when justice dies, And constitutions are non-entities; The nation's all a mob; there's no such thing As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King. A great promiscuous crowd the hydra lies Till laws revive and mutual contract ties; A chaos free to choose for their own share What case of government they please to wear. If to a king they do the reins commit, All men are bound in conscience to submit; But then that king must by his oath assent To _postulatus_ of the government, Which if he breaks, he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original. This doctrine has the sanction of assent From Nature's universal Parliament. The voice of Nature and the course of things Allow that laws superior are to kings. None but delinquents would have justice cease; Knaves rail at laws as soldiers rail at peace; For justice is the end of government, As reason is the test of argument. No man was ever yet so void of sense As to debate the right of self-defence, A principle so grafted in the mind, With Nature born, and does like Nature bind; Twisted with reason and with Nature too, As neither one or other can undo. Nor can this right be less when national; Reason, which governs one, should govern all. Whatever the dialects of courts may tell, He that his right demands can ne'er rebel, Which right, if 'tis by governors denied, May be procured by force or foreign aid; For tyranny's a nation's term of grief, As folks cry "Fire" to hasten in relief; And when the hated word is heard about, All men should come to help the people out. Thus England groaned--Britannia's voice was heard, And great Nassau to rescue her appeared, Called by the universal voice of Fate-- God and the people's legal magistrate. Ye Heavens regard! Almighty Jove look down, And view thy injured monarch on the throne. On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take, Who sought his aid and then his part forsake. Witness, ye Powers! It was our call alone, Which now our pride makes us ashamed to own. Britannia's troubles fetched him from afar To court the dreadful casualties of war; But where requital never can be made, Acknowledgment's a tribute seldom paid. He dwelt in bright Maria's circling arms, Defended by the magic of her charms From foreign fears and from domestic harms. Ambition found no fuel to her fire; He had what God could give or man desire. Till pity roused him from his soft repose, His life to unseen hazards to expose; Till pity moved him in our cause t'appear; Pity! that word which now we hate to hear. But English gratitude is always such, To hate the hand which doth oblige too much. Britannia's cries gave birth to his intent, And hardly gained his unforeseen assent; His boding thoughts foretold him he should find The people fickle, selfish, and unkind. Which thought did to his royal heart appear More dreadful than the dangers of the war; For nothing grates a generous mind so soon As base returns for hearty service done. Satire, be silent! awfully prepare Britannia's song and William's praise to hear. Stand by, and let her cheerfully rehearse Her grateful vows in her immortal verse. Loud Fame's eternal trumpet let her sound; Listen, ye distant Poles and endless round. May the strong blast the welcome news convey As far as sound can reach or spirit can fly. To neighb'ring worlds, if such there be, relate Our hero's fame, for theirs to imitate. To distant worlds of spirits let her rehearse: For spirits, without the help of voice, converse. May angels hear the gladsome news on high, Mixed with their everlasting symphony. And Hell itself stand in suspense to know Whether it be the fatal blast or no. BRITANNIA The fame of virtue 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crowned. Fame, built on solid virtue, swifter flies Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gathering air returns the doubling sound, And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep; Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by every ear and spoke by every tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furled, Rises like the great genius of the world. By Fate and Fame wisely prepared to be The soul of war and life of victory; He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. By different steps the high ascent he gains, And differently that high ascent maintains. Princes for pride and lust of rule make war, And struggle for the name of conqueror. Some fight for fame, and some for victory; He fights to save, and conquers to set free. Then seek no phrase his titles to conceal, And hide with words what actions must reveal, No parallel from Hebrew stories take Of god-like kings my similes to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim. 'Tis honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise: Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery. He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but his name: William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song. Listen, ye virgins to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round: Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king. May he submit to none but to your arms, Nor ever be subdued but by your charms. May your soft thoughts for him be all sublime, And every tender vow be made for him. May he be first in every morning thought, And Heaven ne'er hear a prayer when he's left out. May every omen, every boding dream, Be fortunate by mentioning his name; May this one charm infernal power affright, And guard you from the terrors of the night; May every cheerful glass, as it goes down To William's health, be cordials to your own. Let every song be chorused with his name, And music pay a tribute to his fame; Let every poet tune his artful verse, And in immortal strains his deeds rehearse. And may Apollo never more inspire The disobedient bard with his seraphic fire; May all my sons their graceful homage pay, His praises sing, and for his safety pray. Satire, return to our unthankful isle, Secured by Heaven's regard and William's toil; To both ungrateful and to both untrue, Rebels to God, and to good-nature too. If e'er this nation be distressed again, To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain; To Heaven they cannot have the face to look, Or, if they should, it would but Heaven provoke. To hope for help from man would be too much, Mankind would always tell them of the Dutch; How they came here our freedoms to obtain, Were paid and cursed, and hurried home again; How by their aid we first dissolved our fears, And then our helpers damned for foreigners. 'Tis not our English temper to do better, For Englishmen think every man their debtor. 'Tis worth observing that we ne'er complained | Of foreigners, nor of the wealth they gained, > Till all their services were at an end. | Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay, And then they always think, their temper's such, The work too little and the pay too much. As frightened patients, when they want a cure, Bid any price, and any pain endure; But when the doctor's remedies appear, The cure's too easy and the price too dear. Great Portland ne'er was bantered when he strove For us his master's kindest thoughts to move; We ne'er lampooned his conduct when employed King James's secret counsels to divide: Then we caressed him as the only man Which could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai able to repel The dark designs of our Achitopel; Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman and the bravest prince. On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch. Nor was he valued more than he deserved, Freely he ventured, faithfully he served. In all King William's dangers he has shared; In England's quarrels always he appeared: The Revolution first, and then the Boyne, In both his counsels and his conduct shine; His martial valour Flanders will confess, And France regrets his managing the peace. Faithful to England's interest and her king; The greatest reason of our murmuring. Ten years in English service he appeared, | And gained his master's and the world's regard: > But 'tis not England's custom to reward. | The wars are over, England needs him not; Now he's a Dutchman, and the Lord knows what. Schomberg, the ablest soldier of his age, With great Nassau did in our cause engage: Both joined for England's rescue and defence, The greatest captain and the greatest prince. With what applause, his stories did we tell! Stories which Europe's volumes largely swell. We counted him an army in our aid: Where he commanded, no man was afraid. His actions with a constant conquest shine, From Villa-Viciosa to the Rhine. France, Flanders, Germany, his fame confess, And all the world was fond of him, but us. Our turn first served, we grudged him the command: Witness the grateful temper of the land. We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Hugonots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has so often been betrayed by us, He must have been a madman to rely On English Godolphin's fidelity. For, laying other arguments aside, This thought might mortify our English pride, That foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him. They have our ships and merchants bought and sold, And bartered English blood for foreign gold. First to the French they sold our Turkey fleet, And injured Talmarsh next at Camaret. The King himself is sheltered from their snares, Not by his merit, but the crown he wears. Experience tells us 'tis the English way Their benefactors always to betray. And lest examples should be too remote, | A modern magistrate of famous note > Shall give you his own character by rote. | I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman, In all the latitude of that empty word, By modern acceptations understood. The parish books his great descent record; And now he hopes ere long to be a lord. And truly, as things go, it would be pity But such as he should represent the City: While robbery for burnt-offering he brings, And gives to God what he has stole from kings: Great monuments of charity he raises, And good St. Magnus whistles out his praises. To City gaols he grants a jubilee, And hires huzzas from his own Mobilee.[21] Lately he wore the golden chain and gown, With which equipped, he thus harangued the town. HIS FINE SPEECH, ETC. With clouted iron shoes and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches; From driving cows and calves to Leyton Market, While of my greatness there appeared no spark yet, Behold I come, to let you see the pride With which exalted beggars always ride. Born to the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and Fate, in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make, Kindly at last resolved they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight, they vote me. What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare, And furnished me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they designed to have me; And every gift, but honesty, they gave me. And thus equipped, to this proud town I came, In quest of bread, and not in quest of fame. Blind to my future fate, a humble boy, Free from the guilt and glory I enjoy, The hopes which my ambition entertained Were in the name of foot-boy all contained. The greatest heights from small beginnings rise; The gods were great on earth before they reached the skies. B---- well, the generous temper of whose mind Was ever to be bountiful inclined, Whether by his ill-fate or fancy led, First took me up, and furnished me with bread. The little services he put me to Seemed labours, rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he designed, For 'twas his very nature to be kind. Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me. And I, who was before decreed by Fate To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obeyed him, Till trusted with his all, and then betrayed him. All his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruined his fortunes to erect my own. So vipers in the bosom bred, begin To hiss at that hand first which took them in. With eager treachery I his fall pursued, And my first trophies were Ingratitude. Ingratitude, the worst of human wit, The basest action mankind can commit; Which, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, Has least of honour, and of guilt the most; Distinguished from all other crimes by this, That 'tis a crime which no man will confess. That sin alone, which should not be forgiven On earth, although perhaps it may in Heaven. Thus my first benefactor I o'erthrew; And how should I be to a second true? The public trusts came next into my care, And I to use them scurvily prepare. My needy sovereign lord I played upon, And lent him many a thousand of his own; For which great interests I took care to charge, And so my ill-got wealth became so large. My predecessor, Judas, was a fool, Fitter to have been whipped and sent to school Than sell a Saviour. Had I been at hand, His Master had not been so cheap trepanned; I would have made the eager Jews have found, For forty pieces, thirty thousand pound. My cousin, Ziba, of immortal fame (Ziba and I shall never want a name), First-born of treason, nobly did advance His master's fall for his inheritance, By whose keen arts old David first began To break his sacred oath with Jonathan: The good old king, 'tis thought, was very loth To break his word, and therefore broke his oath. Ziba's a traitor of some quality, Yet Ziba might have been informed by me: Had I been there, he ne'er had been content With half the estate, nor have the government. In our late revolution 'twas thought strange That I, of all mankind, should like the change; But they who wondered at it never knew That in it I did my old game pursue; Nor had they heard of twenty thousand pound, Which never yet was lost, nor ne'er was found. Thus all things in their turn to sale I bring, God and my master first, and then the King; Till, by successful villanies made bold, I thought to turn the nation into gold; And so to forgery my hand I bent, | Not doubting I could gull the Government; > But there was ruffled by the Parliament. | And if I 'scaped the unhappy tree to climb, 'Twas want of law, and not for want of crime. But my old friend,[22] who printed in my face A needful competence of English brass, Having more business yet for me to do, And loth to lose his trusty servant so, Managed the matter with such art and skill As saved his hero and threw down the bill. And now I'm graced with unexpected honours, For which I'll certainly abuse the donors. Knighted, and made a tribune of the people, Whose laws and properties I'm like to keep well; The _custos rotulorum_ of the City, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war; I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none to rob you but myself. The King commanded me to help reform ye, And how I'll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they'd do the same. THE CONCLUSION Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is't to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another." There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with sop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense with that oath, their King being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted; it is not a Christian spirit. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third,[24] and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clouts, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither, was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James the First;[25] and what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at their own request: to let them go to New England and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency! It was the

satire

How many times the word 'satire' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

whether

How many times the word 'whether' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

do

How many times the word 'do' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

finance

How many times the word 'finance' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

pine

How many times the word 'pine' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

an

How many times the word 'an' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

compagnon

How many times the word 'compagnon' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

eggs

How many times the word 'eggs' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

divertissements

How many times the word 'divertissements' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

did

How many times the word 'did' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

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And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

clear

How many times the word 'clear' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

lesson

How many times the word 'lesson' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

task

How many times the word 'task' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

shut

How many times the word 'shut' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

thrown

How many times the word 'thrown' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

thing

How many times the word 'thing' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

for

How many times the word 'for' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

simply

How many times the word 'simply' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

chivalric

How many times the word 'chivalric' appears in the text?

And your vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick----" "Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard feelings." "Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your ears off?" "Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and I'll leave you." So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barmberry's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, now!" "I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, old _compagnon de voyage_!" Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. "This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of spiritualistic medium----" Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who has been of service to----" He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other chicken for----" "Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the landlady, at the door. "I'll go on," stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. "You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." "Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" "Quite right. Sorry!" "Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, "This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" CHAPTER XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York: "Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some real Ren Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime of the road----" "Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. "Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." "Then you don't really like adventuring?" "Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast!" "Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: "Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." "What can I do?" "My dear sir, since you brought him here----" It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. * * * * * When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he sends his apologies." "I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. "Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it." "Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. "Well?" "I want to get two rooms for the night, please." The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, heh?" "We're motoring through." "Heh? Who's that man?" "He's my father, madam." "Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!" The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night." "Where d' you come----" "Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: "Wherdjuhcomfromised!" "From New York. Is there another hotel----" "Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: "Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" "I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!" "Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" "Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" "Now!?" "We haven't eaten since noon." "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street." When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he was going right to bed. "Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." "Safe to go out alone?" "Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared. "I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." "Stove's out. No hot water in the house." "Couldn't you heat some?" "Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!" The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. "You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!" "Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Caf , with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" "Why yes. Is there another?" "Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." "The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." "Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?" "Three dollars." "Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." "But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?" "That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Caf . At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. "W-who's there?" "It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." "Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." "Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me." "Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off." "I don't want it, I tell you!" "Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting: "I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You asked me----" "M-must I s-shout?" "S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Caf ? If she had to---- Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" CHAPTER XX THE FREE WOMAN Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" "Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" "Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around." "I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. "But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----" "Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. "Not till after breakfast." It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman." The landlady stared, then ignored her. "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her

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How many times the word 'chapter' appears in the text?