February 2019

The Kid put up his gun, and walked toward the door. But he turned again and came back to the trembling Thacker, and held up his left hand with its back toward the consul. “There’s one more reason,” he said slowly, “why things have got to stand as they are. The fellow I killed in

“You’re going to throw me down, then, are you?” said the consul. “Sure,” said the Kid cheerfully. “Throw you down. That’s it. And now I’ll tell you why. The first night I was up at the colonel’s house they introduced me to a bedroom. No blankets on the floor–a real room, with a bed and

“Why, sure,” said the Kid, admiring his diamond, “there’s plenty of money up there. I’m no judge of collateral in bunches, but I will undertake for to say that I’ve seen the rise of $50,000 at a time in that tin grub box that my adopted father calls his safe. And he lets me carry

“What’s doing?” asked Thacker. “Nothing much,” said the Kid calmly. “I eat my first iguana steak to-day. They’re them big lizards, you /sabe/? I reckon, though, that frijoles and side bacon would do me about as well. Do you care for iguanas, Thacker?” “No, nor for some other kinds of reptiles,” said Thacker. It was

Senora Urique threw back her black veil with a quick gesture. She was past middle age, and her hair was beginning to silver, but her full, proud figure and clear olive skin retained traces of the beauty peculiar to the Basque province. But, once you had seen her eyes, and comprehended the great sadness that

Thacker had set the time at a week, but it was two weeks before the design that he patiently tattooed upon the Kid’s hand was to his notion. And then Thacker called a /muchacho/, and dispatched this note to the intended victim: El Senor Don Santos Urique, La Casa Blanca, My Dear Sir: I beg

“I’m waiting,” said the Kid. “I haven’t had my saddle off in your camp long, pardner, and I never met you before; but if you intend to let it go at a parental blessing, why, I’m mistaken in my man, that’s all.” “Thanks,” said the consul. “I haven’t met anybody in a long time that

“That’s it,” said Thacker, reaching behind the official desk for his bottle of smuggled brandy. “You’re not so slow. I can do it. What was I consul at Sandakan for? I never knew till now. In a week I’ll have the eagle bird with the frog-sticker blended in so you’d think you were born with

“In that house,” said Thacker, “a fine old Castilian gentleman and his wife are yearning to gather you into their arms and fill your pockets with money. Old Santos Urique lives there. He owns half the gold-mines in the country.” “You haven’t been eating loco weed, have you?” asked the Kid. “Sit down again,” said

“They speak Spanish here,” said the consul. “You’ll need an interpreter. If there’s anything I can do, why, I’d be delighted. If you’re buying fruit lands or looking for a concession of any sort, you’ll want somebody who knows the ropes to look out for you.” “I speak Spanish,” said the Kid, “about nine times

Thacker, the United States consul at Buenas Tierras, was not yet drunk. It was only eleven o’clock; and he never arrived at his desired state of beatitude–a state wherein he sang ancient maudlin vaudeville songs and pelted his screaming parrot with banana peels–until the middle of the afternoon. So, when he looked up from his

“Thinkin’ of buyin’ that’ar gulf, buddy?” asked the captain, made sarcastic by his narrow escape from a tobaccoless voyage. “Why, no,” said the Kid gently, “I reckon not. I never saw it before. I was just looking at it. Not thinking of selling it, are you?” “Not this trip,” said the captain. “I’ll send it

With the springing roan under him he felt little care or uneasiness. After a five-mile gallop he drew it in to the plainsman’s jogging trot, and rode northeastward toward the Nueces River bottoms. He knew the country well–its most tortuous and obscure trails through the great wilderness of brush and pear, and its camps and

The Kid openly boarded the north-bound passenger train that departed five minutes later. But at Webb, a few miles out, where it was flagged to take on a traveller, he abandoned that manner of escape. There were telegraph stations ahead; and the Kid looked askance at electricity and steam. Saddle and spur were his rocks

The Kid, not being equipped with a retinue, nor bountifully supplied with personal admirers and supporters–on account of a rather umbrageous reputation, even for the border–considered it not incompatible with his indispensable gameness to perform that judicious tractional act known as “pulling his freight.” Quickly the avengers gathered and sought him. Three of them overtook

by O. Henry The trouble began in Laredo. It was the Llano Kid’s fault, for he should have confined his habit of manslaughter to Mexicans. But the Kid was past twenty; and to have only Mexicans to one’s credit at twenty is to blush unseen on the Rio Grande border. It happened in old Justo Valdos’s

There lay a young man, fast asleep—sleeping so soundly, so deeply, that he was far, far away from them both. Oh, so remote, so peaceful. He was dreaming. Never wake him up again. His head was sunk in the pillow, his eyes were closed; they were blind under the closed eyelids. He was given up

The little woman in the gloomy passage seemed not to have heard her. “Step this way, please, miss,” she said in an oily voice, and Laura followed her.   She found herself in a wretched little low kitchen, lighted by a smoky lamp. There was a woman sitting before the fire.   “Em,” said the

Laura was terribly nervous. Tossing the velvet ribbon over her shoulder, she said to a woman standing by, “Is this Mrs. Scott’s house?” and the woman, smiling queerly, said, “It is, my lass.”   Oh, to be away from this! She actually said, “Help me, God,” as she walked up the tiny path and knocked.

Now the broad road was crossed. The lane began, smoky and dark. Women in shawls and men’s tweed caps hurried by. Men hung over the palings; the children played in the doorways. A low hum came from the mean little cottages. In some of them there was a flicker of light, and a shadow, crab-like,

“But, mother, do you really think it’s a good idea?” said Laura.   Again, how curious, she seemed to be different from them all. To take scraps from their party. Would the poor woman really like that?   “Of course! What’s the matter with you to-day? An hour or two ago you were insisting on

“All over, all over, thank heaven,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “Round up the others, Laura. Let’s go and have some fresh coffee. I’m exhausted. Yes, it’s been very successful. But oh, these parties, these parties! Why will you children insist on giving parties!” And they all of them sat down in the deserted marquee.   “Have

Lunch was over by half-past one. By half-past two they were all ready for the fray. The green-coated band had arrived and was established in a corner of the tennis-court.   “My dear!” trilled Kitty Maitland, “aren’t they too like frogs for words? You ought to have arranged them round the pond with the conductor

“Darling!” Mrs. Sheridan got up and came over to her, carrying the hat. Before Laura could stop her she had popped it on. “My child!” said her mother, “the hat is yours. It’s made for you. It’s much too young for me. I have never seen you look such a picture. Look at yourself!” And

“Drunk! Who said he was drunk?” Laura turned furiously on Jose. She said, just as they had used to say on those occasions, “I’m going straight up to tell mother.”   “Do, dear,” cooed Jose.   “Mother, can I come into your room?” Laura turned the big glass door-knob.   “Of course, child. Why, what’s

That really was extravagant, for the little cottages were in a lane to themselves at the very bottom of a steep rise that led up to the house. A broad road ran between. True, they were far too near. They were the greatest possible eyesore, and they had no right to be in that neighbourhood

“Tuk-tuk-tuk,” clucked cook like an agitated hen. Sadie had her hand clapped to her cheek as though she had toothache. Hans’s face was screwed up in the effort to understand. Only Godber’s man seemed to be enjoying himself; it was his story.   “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”   “There’s been a horrible accident,” said

“Godber’s has come,” announced Sadie, issuing out of the pantry. She had seen the man pass the window.   That meant the cream puffs had come. Godber’s were famous for their cream puffs. Nobody ever thought of making them at home.   “Bring them in and put them on the table, my girl,” ordered cook.

“Now, Laura,” said her mother quickly, “come with me into the smoking-room. I’ve got the names somewhere on the back of an envelope. You’ll have to write them out for me. Meg, go upstairs this minute and take that wet thing off your head. Jose, run and finish dressing this instant. Do you hear me,

“Bank them up, just inside the door, on both sides of the porch, please,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “Don’t you agree, Laura?”   “Oh, I do, mother.”   In the drawing-room Meg, Jose and good little Hans had at last succeeded in moving the piano.   “Now, if we put this chesterfield against the wall and

The front door bell pealed, and there sounded the rustle of Sadie’s print skirt on the stairs. A man’s voice murmured; Sadie answered, careless, “I’m sure I don’t know. Wait. I’ll ask Mrs Sheridan.”   “What is it, Sadie?” Laura came into the hall.   “It’s the florist, Miss Laura.”   It was, indeed. There,

The telephone. “Yes, yes; oh yes. Kitty? Good morning, dear. Come to lunch? Do, dear. Delighted of course. It will only be a very scratch meal—just the sandwich crusts and broken meringue-shells and what’s left over. Yes, isn’t it a perfect morning? Your white? Oh, I certainly should. One moment—hold the line. Mother’s calling.” And

It’s all the fault, she decided, as the tall fellow drew something on the back of an envelope, something that was to be looped up or left to hang, of these absurd class distinctions. Well, for her part, she didn’t feel them. Not a bit, not an atom…. And now there came the chock-chock of

Laura’s upbringing made her wonder for a moment whether it was quite respectful of a workman to talk to her of bangs slap in the eye. But she did quite follow him.   “A corner of the tennis-court,” she suggested. “But the band’s going to be in one corner.”   “H’m, going to have a

Four men in their shirt-sleeves stood grouped together on the garden path. They carried staves covered with rolls of canvas, and they had big tool-bags slung on their backs. They looked impressive. Laura wished now that she had not got the bread-and-butter, but there was nowhere to put it, and she couldn’t possibly throw it

And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze of light gold, as it is sometimes in early summer. The gardener had been up since