You skip lightly past the story of the young man in uniform; you jump hurriedly over the picture; and you plunge4 into the next story, noting that it is called "The Crimson5 Emerald" and that, judging from the pictures, all the characters in it wear evening clothes all the time.
Chug Scaritt took his dose of war with the best of them, but this is of Chug before and after taking. If, inadvertently, there should sound a faintly martial6 note it shall be stifled7 at once with a series of those stylish8 dots ... indicative of what the early Victorian writers conveniently called a drawn10 veil.
Nothing could be fairer than that.
Chug Scaritt was (and is) the proprietor11 and sole owner of the Elite12 Garage, and he pronounced it with a long i. Automobile13 parties, touring Wisconsin, used to mistake him for a handy man about the place and would call to him, "Heh, boy! Come here and take a look at this engine. She ain't hitting." When Chug finished with her she was hitting, all right. A medium-sized young fellow in the early twenties with a serious mouth, laughing eyes, and a muscular grace pretty well concealed15 by the grease-grimed grotesquerie of overalls16. Out of the overalls and in his tight-fitting, belted green suit and long-visored green cap and flat russet shoes he looked too young and insouciant17 to be the sole owner—much less the proprietor—of anything so successful and established as the Elite Garage.
In a town like Chippewa, Wisconsin—or in any other sort of town, for that matter—a prosperous garage knows more about the scandals of the community than does a barber-shop, a dressmaker-by-the-day, or a pool-room habitue. It conceals18 more skeletons than the catacombs. Chug Scaritt, had he cared to open his lips and speak, might have poured forth19 such chronicles as to make Spoon River sound a p?an of sweetness and light. He knew how much Old Man Hatton's chauffeur20 knocked down on gas and repairs; he knew just how much the Tillotsons had gone into debt for their twin-six, and why Emil Sauter drove to Oshkosh so often on business, and who supplied the flowers for Mrs. Gurnee's electric. Chug didn't encourage gossip in his garage. Whenever possible he put his foot down on its ugly head in a vain attempt to crush it. But there was something about the very atmosphere of the place that caused it to thrive and flourish. It was like a combination newspaper office and Pullman car smoker21. Chug tried to keep the thing down but there might generally be seen lounging about the doorway22 or perched on the running board of an idle car a little group of slim, flat-heeled, low-voiced young men in form-fitting, high-waisted suits of that peculiarly virulent23 shade of green which makes its wearer look as if he had been picked before he was ripe.
They were a lean, slim-flanked crew with a feline24 sort of grace about them; terse25 of speech, quick of eye, engine-wise, and, generally, nursing a boil just above the collar of their soft shirt. Not vicious. Not even tough. Rather bored, though they didn't know it. In their boredom26 resorting to the only sort of solace27 afforded boys of their class in a town of Chippewa's size: cheap amusements, cheap girls, cheap talk. This last unless the topic chanced to be of games or of things mechanical. Baseball, or a sweet-running engine brought out the best that was in them. At their worst, perhaps, they stood well back in the dim, cool shade of the garage doorway to watch how, when the girls went by in their thin summer dresses, the strong sunlight made a transparency of their skirts. At supper time they would growl29 to their surprised sisters:
"Put on some petticoats, you. Way you girls run around it's enough to make a person sick."
Chug Scaritt escaped being one of these by a double margin30. There was his business responsibility on one side; his very early history on the other. Once you learn the derivation of Chug's nickname you have that history from the age of five to twenty-five, inclusive.
Chug had been christened Floyd (she had got it out of a book) but it was an appendix rather then an appellation31. No one ever dreamed of addressing him by that misnomer32, unless you except his school teachers. Once or twice the boys had tried to use his name as a weapon, shrieking33 in a shrill34 falsetto and making two syllables35 of it. He put a stop to that soon enough with fists and feet. His virility36 could have triumphed over a name twice as puerile37. For that matter, I once knew a young husky named Fayette who—but that's another story.
The Scaritts lived the other side of the tracks. If you know Chippewa, or its equivalent, you get the significance of that. Nobodys. Not only did they live the other side of the tracks; they lived so close to them that the rush and rumble38 of the passing trains shook the two-story frame cottage and rattled39 the crockery on the pantry shelves. The first intelligible40 sound the boy made was a chesty chug-chug-chug in imitation of a panting engine tugging41 its freight load up the incline toward the Junction42. When Chug ran away—which was on an average of twice daily—he was invariably to be found at the switchman's shanty43 or roaming about the freight yards. It got so that Stumpy Gans, the one-legged switchman, would hoist44 a signal to let Mrs. Scaritt know that Chug was safe.
He took his first mechanical toy apart, piece by piece. "Wait till your pa comes home!" his mother had said, with terrible significance. Chug, deep in the toy's wreckage45, seemed undismayed, so Mrs. Scaritt gave him a light promissory slap and went on about her housework. That night, before supper, Len Scaritt addressed his son with a sternness quite at variance46 with his easy-going nature.
"Come here to me! Now, then, what's this about your smashing up good toys? Huh? Whatdya mean! Christmas not two days back and here you go smashing—"
The culprit trotted47 over to a corner and returned with the red-painted tin thing in his hand. It was as good as new. There may even have been some barely noticeable improvement in its locomotive powers. Chug had merely taken it apart in order to put it together again, and he had been too absorbed to pause long enough to tell his mother so. After that, nothing that bore wheels, internally or externally, was safe from his investigating fingers.
It was his first velocipede that really gave him his name. As he rode up and down, his short legs working like piston-rods gone mad, pedestrians49 would scatter50 in terror. His onrush was as relentless51 as that of an engine on a track, and his hoarse52, "Chug-chug! Da-r-r-n-ng! Da-r-r-n-ng!" as he bore down upon a passerby53 caused that one to sidestep precipitously into the gutter54 (and none too soon).
Chug earned his first real bicycle carrying a paper route for the Chippewa Eagle. It took him two years. By the time he had acquired it he knew so much about bicycles, from ball-bearings to handle-bars, that its possession roused very little thrill in him. It was as when a lover has had to wait over-long for his bride. As Chug whizzed about Chippewa's streets, ringing an unnecessarily insistent55 bell, you sensed that a motorcycle was already looming56 large in his mechanism57-loving mind. By the time he was seventeen Chug's motorcycle was spitting its way venomously down Elm Street. And the sequence of the seasons was not more inevitable58 than that an automobile should follow the motorcycle. True, he practically built it himself, out of what appeared to be an old wash-boiler, some wire, and an engine made up of parts that embraced every known car from Ford28 to Fiat59. He painted it an undeniable red, hooded60 it like a demon61 racer, and shifted to first. The thing went.
He was a natural mechanic. He couldn't spend a day with a piece of mechanism without having speeded it up, or in some way done something to its belt, gears, wheels, motor. He was almost never separated from a monkey-wrench or pliers, and he was always turning a nut or bolt or screw in his grease-grimed fingers.
Right here it should be understood that Chug never became a Steinmetz or a Wright. He remained just average-plus to the end, with something more than a knack62 at things mechanical; a good deal of grease beneath his nails; and, generally, a smudge under one eye or a swipe of black across a cheek that gave him a misleadingly sinister63 and piratical look. There's nothing very magnificent, surely, in being the proprietor of a garage, even if it is the best-paying garage in Chippewa, where six out of ten families own a car, and summer tourists are as locusts64 turned beneficent.
Some time between Chug's motorcycle and the home-made automobile Len Scaritt died. The loss to the household was social more than economic. Len had been one of those good-natured, voluble, walrus-moustached men who make such poor providers. A carpenter by trade, he had always been a spasmodic worker and a steady talker. His high, hollow voice went on endlessly above the fusillade of hammers at work and the clatter65 of dishes at home. Politics, unions, world events, local happenings, neighbourhood gossip, all fed the endless stream of his loquacity66.
"Well, now, looka here. Take, f'rins'ance, one these here big concerns—"
After he was gone Mrs. Scaritt used to find herself listening to the silence. His ceaseless talk had often rasped her nerves to the point of hysteria, but now she missed it as we miss a dull ache to which we have grown accustomed.
Chug was in his second year at the Chippewa high school. He had always earned some money, afternoons and Saturdays. Now he quit to go to work in earnest. His mother took it hard.
"I wanted you to have an education," she said. "Not just schooling67. An education." Mittie Scaritt had always had ambition and a fierce sort of pride. She had needed them to combat Len's shiftlessness and slack good nature. They had kept the two-story frame cottage painted and tidy, had her pride and ambition; they had managed a Sunday suit, always, for Chug; money for the contribution box; pork roast on Sundays; and a sitting room, chill but elegant, with its plump pyramids of pillows, embroidered69 with impossible daisies and carnations70 and violets, filling every corner.
Mrs. Scaritt had had to fight for Chug's two years of high school. "He don't need no high school," Len Scaritt had argued, in one of the rare quarrels between the two. "I never had none."
The retort to this was so obvious that his wife refrained from uttering it. Len continued: "He don't go with none of my money. His age I was working 'n' had been for three years and more. You'll be fixing to send him to college, next."
"Well, if I do? Then what?"
"Then you're crazy," said Len, without heat, as one would state a self-evident fact.
That afternoon Mrs. Scaritt went down to the office of the Eagle and inserted a neat ad.
LACE CURTAINS DONE UP LIKE NEW. 25
CENTS A PR. MRS. SCARITT, 639 OUTAGAMIE ST.
For years afterward71 you never passed the Scaritt place without seeing the long skeleton frames of wooden curtain stretchers propped72 up against the back porch in the sun. Mrs. Scaritt became famous for her curtains as an artist is known for his middle distances, his woodland green, or his flesh tones. In time even the Hattons, who had always heretofore sent their fine curtains to Milwaukee to be cleaned, trusted their lacy treasures to Mrs. Scaritt's expert hands.
Chug went to high school on those lace curtains. He used to call for and deliver them. He rigged up a shelf-like device on his bicycle handlebars. On this the freshly laundered73 curtains reposed74 in their neat paper wrappings as unwrinkled as when they had come from the stretching frame.
At seventeen he went to work in the Elite Garage. He hadn't been there a month before the owner was saying, "Say, Chug, take a look at this here bus, will you? She don't run right but I can't find out what's got into her."
Chug would put his ear to the heart of the car, and tap its vitals, and count its pulse-beats as a doctor sounds you with his stethoscope. The look on his face was that of a violinist who tries his G-string.
For the rest, he filled gas tanks, changed and pumped up tires, tested batteries, oiled tappets. But the thing that fascinated him was the engine. An oily, blue-eyed boy in spattered overalls, he was always just emerging from beneath a car, or crawling under it. When a new car came in, en route—a proud, glittering affair—he always managed to get a chance at it somehow, though the owner or chauffeur guarded it ever so jealously. The only thing on wheels that he really despised was an electric brougham. Chippewa's well-paved streets made these vehicles possible. Your true garage man's feeling for electrics is unprintable. The least that they called them was juice-boxes.
At home Chug was forever rigging up labour-saving devices for his mother. The Scaritt's window-shades always rolled; their doorbell always rang with a satisfactory zing; their suction-pump never stuck. By the time he was twenty Chug was manager of the garage and his mother was saying, "You're around that garage sixteen hours a day. When you're home you're everlastingly76 reading those engineering papers and things. Your pa at your age had a girl for every night in the week and two on Sundays."
"Another year or so and I can buy out old Behnke and own the place. Soon's I do I'm going to come home in the speediest boat in the barn, and I'm going to bust77 up those curtain frames into kindling78 wood, over my knee, and pile 'em in the backyard and make a bonfire out of 'em."
"They've been pretty good friends to us, Chug—those curtain frames."
"Um." He glanced at her parboiled fingers. "Just the same, it'll be nix with the lace curtains for you."
Glancing back on what has been told of Chug he sounds, somehow, so much like a modern Rollo, with a dash of Alger, that unless something is told of his social side he may be misunderstood.
Chug was a natural born dancer. There are young men who, after the music has struck up, can start out incredibly enough by saying: "What is this, anyway—waltz or fox trot48?" This was inconceivable to Chug. He had never had a dancing lesson in his life, but he had a sense of rhythm that was infallible. He could no more have danced out of time than he could have started a car on high, or confused a flivver with a Twelve. He didn't look particularly swanlike as he danced, having large, sensible feet, but they were expert at not being where someone else's feet happened to be, and he could time a beat to the fraction of a second.
When you have practically spent your entire day sprawled79 under a balky car, with a piece of dirty mat between you and the cement floor, your view limited to crank-case, transmission, universal, fly-wheel, differential, pan, and brake-rods you can do with a bit of colour in the evening. And just here was where Chippewa failed Chug.
He had a grave problem confronting him in his search for an evening's amusement. Chippewa, Wisconsin, was proud of its paved streets, its thirty thousand population, its lighting80 system, and the Greek temple that was the new First National Bank. It boasted of its interurban lines, its neat houses set well back among old elms, its paper mills, its plough works, and its prosperity. If you had told Chippewa that it was criminally ignoring Chug's crying need it would have put you down as mad.
Boiled down, Chug Scaritt's crying need was girls. At twenty-two or three you must have girls in your life if you're normal. Chug was, but Chippewa wasn't. It had too many millionaires at one end and too many labourers at the other for a town of thirty thousand. Its millionaires had their golf club, their high-powered cars, their smart social functions. They were always running down to Chicago to hear Galli-Curci; and when it came to costume—diamond bracelet81, daring decolletage, large feather fans, and brilliant-buckled slippers82—you couldn't tell their women from the city dwellers83. There is much money in paper mills and plough works.
The mill hands and their families were well-paid, thrifty84, clannish85 Swedes, most of them, with a liberal sprinkling of Belgians and Slavs. They belonged to all sorts of societies and lodges86 to which they paid infinitesimal dues and swore lifelong allegiance.
Chug Scaritt and boys of his kind were left high and dry. So, then, when Chug went out with a girl it was likely to be by way of someone's kitchen; or with one of those who worked in the rag room at the paper and pulp87 mill. They were the very girls who switched up and down in front of the garage evenings and Saturday afternoons. Many of them had been farm girls in Michigan or northern Wisconsin or even Minnesota. In Chippewa they did housework. Big, robust88 girls they were, miraculously89 well dressed in good shoes and suits and hats. They had bad teeth, for the most part, with a scum over them; over-fond of coffee; and were rather dull company. But they were good-natured, and hearty91, and generous.
The paper-mill girls were quite another type. Theirs was a grayish pallor due to lungs dust-choked from work in the rag room. That same pallor promised ill for future generations in Chippewa. But they had a rather appealing, wistful fragility. Their eyes generally looked too big for their faces. They possessed92, though, a certain vivacity93 and diablerie that the big, slower-witted Swede girls lacked.
When Chug felt the need of a dash of red in the evening he had little choice. In the winter he often went up to Woodman's Hall. The dances at Woodman's Hall were of the kind advertised at fifty cents a couple. Extra lady, twenty-five cents. Ladies without gents, thirty-five cents. Bergstrom's two-piece orchestra. Chug usually went alone, but he escorted home one of the ladies-without-gents. It was not that he begrudged94 the fifty cents. Chug was free enough with his money. He went to these dances on a last-minute impulse, almost against his will, and out of sheer boredom. Once there he danced every dance and all the encores. The girls fought for him. Their manner of dancing was cheek to cheek, in wordless rhythm. His arm about the ample waist of one of the Swedish girls, or clasping close the frail95 form of one of the mill hands, Chug would dance on and on, indefatigably96, until the music played "Home Sweet Home." The conversation, if any, varied97 little.
"The music's swell98 to-night," from the girl.
"Yeh."
"You're some little dancer, Chug, I'll say. Honest, I could dance with you forever." This with a pressure of the girl's arm, and spoken with a little accent, whether Swedish, Belgian, or Slavic.
"They all say that."
"Crazy about yourself, ain't you!"
"Not as crazy as I am about you," with tardy99 gallantry.
He was very little stirred, really.
"Yeh, you are. I wish you was. It makes no never minds to you who you're dancing with, s'long's you're dancing."
This last came one evening as a variant100 in the usual formula. It startled Chug a little, so that he held the girl off the better to look at her. She was Wanda something-or-other, and anybody but Chug would have been alive to the fact that she had been stalking him for weeks with a stolid101 persistence102.
"Danced with you three times to-night, haven't I?" he demanded. He was rather surprised to find that this was so.
"Wisht it was thirty."
That was Wanda. Her very eagerness foiled her. She cheapened herself. When Chug said, "Can I see you home?" he knew the answer before he put the question. Too easy to get along with, Wanda. Always there ahead of time, waiting, when you made a date with her. Too ready to forgive you when you failed to show up. Telephoned you when you were busy. Didn't give a fellow a chance to come half way, but went seven eighths of it herself. An ignorant, kindly103, dangerous girl, with the physical development of a woman and the mind of a child. There were dozens like her in Chippewa.
If the girls of his own class noticed him at all it was the more to ignore him as a rather grimy mechanic passing briefly104 before their vision down Outagamie Street on his way to and from dinner. He was shy of them. They had a middle-class primness105 which forbade their making advances even had they been so inclined. Chug would no more have scraped acquaintance with them than he would have tried to flirt106 with Angie Hatton, Old Man Hatton's daughter, and the richest girl in Chippewa—so rich that she drove her own car with the chauffeur stuck up behind.
You didn't have to worry about Wanda and her kind. There they were, take them or leave them. They expected you to squeeze their waist when you danced with them, and so you did. You didn't have to think about what you were going to say to them.
Mrs. Scaritt suspected in a vague sort of way that Chug was "running with the hired girls." The thought distressed107 her. She was too smart a woman to nag68 him about it. She tried diplomacy108.
"Why don't you bring some young folks home to eat, Chug? I like to fuss around for company." She was a wonderful cook, Mrs. Scaritt, and liked to display her skill.
"Who is there to bring?"
"The boys and girls you go around with. Who is it you're always fixing up for, evenings?"
"Nobody."
Mrs. Scaritt tried another tack109.
"I s'pose this house isn't good enough for 'em? Is that it?"
"Good enough!" Chug laughed rather grimly. "I'd like to know what's the matter with it!"
There was, as a matter of fact, nothing the matter with it. It was as spick and span as paint and polish could make it. The curtain-stretching days were long past. There had even been talk of moving out of the house by the tracks, but at the last moment Mrs. Scaritt had rebelled.
"I'll miss the sound of the trains. I'm used to 'em. It's got so I can tell just where my right hand'll be when the seven fifty-two goes by in the morning, and I've got used to putting on the potatoes when I hear the 'leven-forty. Let's stay, Chug."
So they had stayed. Gradually they had added an improvement here, a convenience there, as Chug's prosperity grew, until now the cottage by the tracks was newly painted, bathroomed, electric-lighted, with a cement walk front and back and a porch with a wicker swing and flower baskets. Chug gave his mother more housekeeping money than she needed, though she, in turn, served him meals that would have threatened the waist-line of an older and less active man. There was a banana pie, for instance (it sounds sickish, but wait!) which she baked in a deep pan, and over which she poured a golden-brown custard all flecked with crusty melted sugar. You took a bite and lo! it had vanished like a sweet dewdrop, leaving in your mouth a taste as of nectar, and clover-honey, and velvet110 cream.
Mrs. Scaritt learned to gauge111 Chug's plans for the evening by his ablutions. Elaborate enough at any time, on dance nights they amounted to a rite9. In the old days Chug's father had always made a brief enough business of the process he called washing up. A hand-basin in the kitchen sink or on the back-porch bench sufficed. The noises he made were out of all proportion to the results obtained. His snufflings, and snortings, and splashings were like those of a grampus at play. When he emerged from them you were surprised to find that he had merely washed his face.
Chug had grease to fight. He had learned how in his first days at the garage. His teacher had been old Rudie, a mechanic who had tinkered around automobiles112 since their kerosene113 days, and who knew more about them than their inventor. Soap and water alone were powerless against the grease and carbon and dust that ground themselves into Chug's skin. First, he lathered114 himself with warm, soapy water. Then, while arms, neck, and face were still wet, he covered them with oil—preferably lubricating oil, medium. Finally he rubbed sawdust over all; great handfuls of it. The grease rolled out then, magically, leaving his skin smooth and white. Old Rudie, while advocating this process, made little use of it. He dispatched the whole grimy business by the simple method of washing in gasoline guaranteed to take the varnish115 off a car fender. It seemed to leave Rudie's tough hide undevastated.
At twenty-four Chug Scaritt was an upstanding, level-headed, and successful young fellow who worked hard all day and found himself restless and almost irritable117 toward evening. He could stay home and read, or go back to the garage, though after eight things were very quiet. For amusement there were the pool shack118, the cheap dances, the street corner, the Y.M.C.A. This last had proved a boon119. The swimming pool, the gym, the reading room, had given Chug many happy, healthful hours. But, after all, there was something—
Chug didn't know it was girls—girls you could talk to, and be with, and take around. But it was. After an hour in the pool, or around the reading table, or talking and smoking, he usually drifted out into the quiet street. He could go home. Or there was Wanda. If he went home he found himself snapping rather irritably120 at his mother, for no reason at all. Ashamed of doing it. Powerless, somehow, to stop.
He took to driving in the evening: long drives along the country roads, his cap pulled low over his eyes, the wind blowing fresh in his face. He used to cover mile on mile, sitting slumped122 low on his spine123, his eyes on the road; the engine running sweet and true. Sometimes he took Wanda along, or one of the mill girls. But not often. They were disappointed if you didn't drive with one arm around them. He liked being alone. It soothed124 him.
It was thus that he first met the Weld girl. The Weld girl was the plain daughter of the Widow Weld. The Widow Weld was a musical-comedy sort of widow in French-heeled, patent-leather slippers and girlish gowns. When you met her together with her daughter Elizabeth you were supposed to say, "Not mother and daughter! Surely not! Sisters, of course." Elizabeth was twenty-four and not a success. At the golf-club dances on Saturday night she would sit, unsought, against the wall while her skittish125 mother tripped it with the doggish bachelors. Sometimes a man would cross the floor toward her and her heart would give a little leap, but he always asked the girl seated two chairs away. Elizabeth danced much better than her mother—much better than most girls, for that matter. But she was small, and dark, and rather shy, and wore thick glasses that disguised the fineness of her black-lashed gray eyes. Now and then her mother, flushed and laughing, would come up and say, "Is my little girl having a good time?" The Welds had no money, but they belonged to Chippewa's fashionable set. There were those who lifted significant eyebrows126 at mention of the Widow Weld's name, and it was common knowledge that no maid would stay with her for any length of time because of the scanty127 provender128. The widow kowtowed shamelessly to the moneyed ones of Chippewa, flattering the women, flirting129 with the men. Elizabeth had no illusions about her mother, but she was stubbornly loyal to her. Her manner toward her kittenish parent was rather sternly maternal130. But she was the honest sort that congenitally hates sham121 and pretence131. She was often deliberately132 rude to the very people toward whom her mother was servile. Her strange friendship with Angie Hatton, the lovely and millioned, was the one thing in Elizabeth's life of which her Machiavellian133 mother approved.
"Betty, you practically stuck out your tongue at Mr. Oakley!" This after a dance at which Elizabeth had been paired off, as usual, with the puffy and red-eyed old widower134 of that name.
"I don't care. His hands are fat and he creaks when he breathes."
"Next to Hatton, he's the richest man in Chippewa. And he likes you."
"He'd better not!" She spat75 it out, and the gray eyes blazed behind the glasses. "I'd rather be plastered up against the wall all my life than dance with him. Fat!"
"Well, my dear, you're no beauty, you know," with cruel frankness.
"I'm not much to look at," replied Elizabeth, "but I'm beautiful inside."
"Rot!" retorted the Widow Weld, inelegantly.
Had you lived in Chippewa all this explanation would have been unnecessary. In that terrifying way small towns have, it was known that of all codfish aristocracy the Widow Weld was the piscatorial135 pinnacle136.
When Chug Scaritt first met the Weld girl she was standing116 out in the middle of the country road at ten-thirty P.M., her arms outstretched and the blood running down one cheek. He had been purring along the road toward home, drowsy137 and lulled138 by the motion and the April air. His thoughts had been drowsy, too, and disconnected.
"If I can rent Bergstrom's place next door when their lease is up I'll knock down the partition and put in auto14 supplies. There's big money in 'em.... Guess if it keeps on warm like this we can plant the garden next week.... That was swell cake Ma had for supper.... What's that in the road! What's!—"
Jammed down the foot-brake. Jerked back the emergency. A girl standing in the road. A dark mass in the ditch by the road-side. He was out of his car. He recognized her as the Weld girl.
"'S'matter?"
"In the ditch. She's hurt. Quick!"
"Whose car?" Chug was scrambling139 down the banks.
"Hatton's. Angie Hatton's."
"Gosh!"
Over by the fence, where she had been flung, Angie Hatton was found sitting up, dizzily, and saying, "Betty! Betty!" in what she supposed was a loud cry but which was really a whisper.
"I'm all right, dear. I'm all right. Oh, Angie, are you—"
She was cut and bruised140, and her wrist had been broken. The two girls clung to each other, wordlessly. The thing was miraculous90, in view of the car that lay perilously141 tipped on its fender.
"You're a lucky bunch," said Chug. "Who was driving?"
"I was," said Angie Hatton.
"It wasn't her fault," the Weld girl put in, quickly. "We were coming from Winnebago. She's a wonderful driver. We met a farm-wagon coming toward us. One of those big ones. The middle of the road. Perhaps he was asleep. He didn't turn out. We thought he would, of course. At the last minute we had to try for the ditch. It was too steep."
"Anyway, you're nervy kids, both of you. I'll have you both home in twenty minutes. We'll have to leave five thousand dollars' worth of car in the road till morning. It'll be all right."
He did get them home in twenty minutes and the five thousand dollars' worth of car was still lying repentantly in the ditch when morning came. Old Man Hatton himself came into the garage to thank Chug the following day. Chug met him in overalls, smudge-faced as he was. Old Man Hatton put out his hand. Chug grinned and looked at his own grease-grimed paw.
"That's all right," said Old Man Hatton, and grasped it firmly. "Want to thank you."
"That's all right," said Chug. "Didn't do a thing."
"No business driving alone that hour of the night. Girls nowadays—" He looked around the garage. "Work here, I suppose?"
"Yessir."
"If there's anything I can do for you? Over at the mill."
"Guess not," said Chug.
"Treat you right here, do they?"
"Fine."
"Let's see. Who owns this place?"
"I do."
Old Man Hatton's face broke into a sunburst of laugh-wrinkles. He threw back his head and went the scale from roar to chuckle142. "One on me. Pretty good. Have to tell Angie that one."
Chug walked to the street with him. "Your daughter, she's got a lot of nerve, all right. And that girl with her—Weld. Say, not a whimper out of her and the blood running down her face. She all right?"
"Cut her head a little. They're both all right. Angie wouldn't even stay in bed. Well, as I say, if there's anything—?"
Chug flushed a little. "Tell you what, Mr. Hatton. I'm working on a thing that'll take the whine143 out of the Daker."
Old Man Hatton owned the Daker Motor plant among other things. The Daker is the best car for the money in the world. Not much for looks but everything in the engine. And everyone who has ever owned one knows that its only fault is the way its engine moans. Daker owners hate that moan. When you're going right it sounds a pass between a peanut roaster and a banshee with bronchitis. Every engineer in the Daker plant had worked over it.
"Can't be done," said Old Man Hatton.
"Another three months and I'll show you."
"Hope you do, son. Hope you do."
But in another three months Chug Scaritt was one of a million boys destined144 to take off a pink-striped shirt, a nobby belted suit, and a long-visored cap to don a rather bob-tailed brown outfit145. It was some eighteen months later before he resumed the chromatic146 clothes with an ardour out of all proportion to their style and cut. But in the interval147 between doffing148 pink-striped shirt and donning pink-striped shirt....
No need to describe Camp Sibley, two miles outside Chippewa, and the way it grew miraculously, overnight, into a khaki city. No going into detail concerning the effective combination formed by Chug and a machine gun. These things were important and interesting. But perhaps not more interesting than the seemingly unimportant fact that in July following that April Chug was dancing blithely149 and rhythmically150 with Elizabeth Weld, and saying, "Angie Hatton's a smooth little dancer, all right; but she isn't in it with you."
For Chippewa, somehow, had fused. Chippewa had forgotten sets, sections, cliques151, factions152, and parties, and formed a community. It had, figuratively, wiped out the railroad tracks, together with all artificial social boundaries. Chug Scaritt, in uniform, must be kept happy. He must be furnished with wholesome153 recreation, fun, amusement, entertainment. There sprang up, seemingly overnight, a great wooden hall in Elm Street, on what had been a vacant lot. And there, by day or by night, were to be had music, and dancing, and hot cakes, and magazines, and hot coffee, and ice cream and girls. Girls! Girls who were straight, and slim, and young, and bright-eyed, and companionable. Girls like Angie Hatton. Girls like Betty Weld. Betty Weld, who no longer sat against the wall at the golf-club dances and prayed in her heart that fat old Oakley wasn't coming to ask her to dance.
Betty Weld was so popular now that the hostess used to have to say to her, in a tactful aside, "My dear, you've danced three times this evening with the Scaritt boy. You know that's against the rules."
Betty knew it. So did Chug. Betty danced so lightly that Chug could hardly feel her in his arms. He told her that she ran sweet and true like the engine of a high-powered car, and with as little apparent effort. She liked that, and understood.
It was wonderful how she understood. Chug had never known that girls could understand like that. She talked to you, straight. Looked at you, straight. Was interested in the things that interested you. No waist-squeezing here. No cheap banter154. You even forgot she wore glasses.
"I'm going to try to get over."
"Say, you don't want to do that."
"I certainly do. Why not?"
"You're—why, you're too young. You're a girl. You're—"
"I'm as old as you, or almost. They're sending heaps of girls over to work in the canteens, and entertain the boys. If they'll take me. I'll have to lie six months on my age."
Rudie was in charge of the garage now. "That part of it's all right," Chug confided155 to the Weld girl. "Only thing that worries me is Ma. She hasn't peeped, hardly, but I can see she's pretty glum156, all right."
"I don't know your mother," said the Weld girl.
"Thasso," absent-mindedly, from Chug.
"I'd—like to."
Chug woke up. "Why, say, that'd be fine! Listen, why don't you come for Sunday dinner. I've got a hunch157 we'll shove off next week, and this'll be my last meal away from camp. They haven't said so, but I don't know—maybe you wouldn't want to, though. Maybe you—we live the other side of the tracks—"
"I'd love to," said the Weld girl. "If you think your mother would like to have me."
"Would she! And cook! Say!"
The Widow Weld made a frightful158 fuss. Said that patriotism159 was all right, but that there were limits. Betty put on her organdie and went.
It began with cream soup and ended with shortcake. Even Chug realized that his mother had outdone herself. After his second helping160 of shortcake he leaned back and said, "Death, where is thy sting?" But his mother refused to laugh at that. She couldn't resist telling Miss Weld that it was plain food but that she hoped she'd enjoyed it.
Elizabeth Weld leaned forward. "Mrs. Scaritt, it's the best dinner I've ever eaten."
Mrs. Scaritt flushed a little, but protested, politely: "Oh, now! You folks up in the East End—"
"Not the Welds. Mother and I are as poor as can be. Everybody knows that. We have lots of doylies and silver on the table, but very little to eat. We never could afford a meal like this. We're sort of crackers-and-tea codfish, really."
"Oh, now, Miss Weld!" Chug's mother was aghast at such frankness. But Chug looked at the girl. She looked at him. They smiled understandingly at each other.
An hour or so later, after Elizabeth had admired the vegetable garden, the hanging flower-baskets, the new parlour curtains ("I used to do 'em up for folks in town," said Mrs. Scaritt, "so's Chug could go to high school." And "I know it. That's what I call splendid," from the girl), she went home, escorted by Chug.
Chug's hunch proved a good one. In a week he was gone. Thirteen months passed before he saw Elizabeth Weld again. When he did, Chippewa had swung back to normal. The railroad tracks were once more boundary lines.
Chug Scaritt went to France to fight. Three months later Elizabeth Weld went to France to dance. They worked hard at their jobs, these two. Perhaps Elizabeth's task was the more trying. She danced indefatigably, tirelessly, magnificently. Miles, and miles, and miles of dancing. She danced on rough plank161 floors with cracks an inch wide between the boards. She danced in hospitals, chateaux, canteens, huts; at Bordeaux, Verdun, Tours, Paris. Five girls, often, to five hundred boys. Every two weeks she danced out a pair of shoes. Her feet, when she went to bed at night, were throbbing163, burning, aching, swollen164. No hot water. You let them throb162, and burn, and ache, and swell until you fell asleep. She danced with big blond bucks165, and with little swarthy doughboys from New York's East Side. She danced with privates, lieutenants166, captains; and once with a general. But never a dance with Chug.
Once or twice she remembered those far-away Chippewa golf-club dances. She was the girl who used to sit there against the wall! She used to look away with pretended indifference167 when a man crossed the floor toward her—her heart leaping a little. He would always go to the girl next to her. She would sit there with a set smile on her face, and the taste of ashes in her mouth. And those shoddy tulle evening dresses her mother had made her wear! Girlish, she had called them. A girl in thick-lensed glasses should not wear tulle evening frocks with a girlish note. Elizabeth had always felt comic in them. Yet there she had sat, shrinking lest the odious168 Oakley, of the fat white fingers and the wheezy breath, should ask her to dance.
She reflected, humorously, that if the miles of dancing she had done in the past year were placed end to end, as they do it in the almanac's fascinating facts, they must surely reach to Mars and return.
Whenever the hut door opened to admit a tall, graceful169, lean brown figure her heart would give a little leap and a skip. As the door did this on an average of a thousand times daily her cardiac processes might be said to have been alarmingly accelerated.
Sometimes—though they did not know it—she and Chug were within a half hour's ride of each other. In all those months they never once met.
Elizabeth Weld came back to Chippewa in June. The First National Bank Building seemed to have shrunk; and she thought her mother looked old in that youthful hat. But she was glad to be home and said so.
"It has been awful here," said the Widow Weld. "Nothing to do but sew at the Red Cross shop; and no sugar or white bread."
"It must have been," agreed Elizabeth.
"They're giving a dance for you—and dinner—a week from Saturday, at the golf club. In your honour."
"Dance!" Elizabeth closed her eyes, faintly. Then, "Who is?"
"Well, Mr. Oakley's really giving it—that is, it was his idea. But the club wanted to tender some fitting—"
"I won't go."
"Oh, yes, you will."
Elizabeth did not argue the point. She had two questions to ask.
"Have the boys come back?"
"What boys?"
"The—the boys."
"Some of them. You know about dear Harry170 Hatton, of course. Croix de—"
"What have they done with the Khaki Club, where they used to give the dances?"
"Closed. Long ago. There was some talk of keeping it open for a community centre, or something, but it fell through. Now, Betty, you'll have to have a dress for Saturday night, I wonder if that old chiffon, with a new—"
Chug Scaritt came home in September. The First National Bank Building seemed, somehow, to have shrunk. And his mother hadn't had all that gray hair when he left. He put eager questions about the garage. Rudie had made out, all right, hadn't he? Good old scout171.
"The boys down at the garage are giving some kind of a party for you. Old Rudie was telling me about it. I've got a grand supper for you to-night, Chug."
"Where's this party? I don't want any party."
"Woodman's Hall, I think they said. There was some girl called up yesterday. Wanda, her name sounded like. I couldn't—"
"Don't they give dances any more at the Soldiers' Club down on Elm?"
"Oh, that's closed, long. There was some talk of using it for what they called a community club. The Eagle was boosting for a big new place. What they called a Community Memorial Centre. But I don't know. It kind of fell through, I guess."
"I won't go," said Chug, suddenly.
"Go where, Chug?"
But instead of answering, Chug put his second question.
"Have you seen—is that—I wonder if that Weld girl's back."
"My, yes. Papers were full of it. Old Oakley gave her a big dance, and all, at the Country Club. They say—"
A week later, his arm about Wanda's big, yielding waist, he was dancing at Woodman's Hall. There was about her a cheap, heavy scent172. She had on a georgette blouse and high-heeled shoes. She clung to Chug and smiled up at him. Wanda had bad teeth—yellow, with a sort of scum over them.
"I sure was lonesome for you, Chug. You're some dancer, I'll say. Honest, I could dance with you all night." A little pressure of her arm.
Somewhere in the recesses173 of his brain a memory cell broke. Dimly he heard himself saying, "Oh, they all tell me that."
"Crazy about yourself, ain't you!"
"Not as crazy as I am about you," with tardy gallantry.
Then, suddenly, Chug stopped dancing. He stopped, and stepped back from Wanda's arms. Bergstrom's two-piece orchestra was in the throes of its jazziest fox-trot number. Chug stood there a moment, in the centre of the floor, staring at Wanda's face that was staring back at him in vacuous174 surprise. He turned, without a word, and crossed the crowded floor, bumping couples blindly as he went. And so down the rickety wooden stairs, into the street, and out into the decent darkness of Chippewa's night.
THE END
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1
assorted
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| adj.各种各样的，各色俱备的 | |
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crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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stylish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的 | |
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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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12
elite
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| n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的 | |
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13
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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14
auto
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| n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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insouciant
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| adj.不在意的 | |
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conceals
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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smoker
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| n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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virulent
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| adj.有毒的，有恶意的，充满敌意的 | |
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feline
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| adj.猫科的 | |
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terse
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| adj.(说话，文笔)精炼的，简明的 | |
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boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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29
growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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30
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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appellation
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| n.名称，称呼 | |
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32
misnomer
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| n.误称 | |
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33
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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34
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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36
virility
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| n.雄劲，丈夫气 | |
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37
puerile
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| adj.幼稚的，儿童的 | |
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38
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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39
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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41
tugging
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| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
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42
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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43
shanty
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| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
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hoist
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| n.升高，起重机，推动；v.升起，升高，举起 | |
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45
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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variance
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| n.矛盾，不同 | |
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47
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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49
pedestrians
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| n.步行者( pedestrian的名词复数 ) | |
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50
scatter
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| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
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51
relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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52
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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53
passerby
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| n.过路人，行人 | |
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gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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55
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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56
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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57
mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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58
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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59
fiat
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| n.命令，法令，批准；vt.批准，颁布 | |
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60
hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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61
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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62
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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63
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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64
locusts
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| n.蝗虫( locust的名词复数 )；贪吃的人；破坏者；槐树 | |
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65
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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66
loquacity
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| n.多话，饶舌 | |
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67
schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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68
nag
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| v.(对…)不停地唠叨；n.爱唠叨的人 | |
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69
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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70
carnations
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| n.麝香石竹，康乃馨( carnation的名词复数 ) | |
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71
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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72
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
laundered
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| v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的过去式和过去分词 )；洗（黑钱）（把非法收入改头换面，变为貌似合法的收入） | |
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74
reposed
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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76
everlastingly
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| 永久地，持久地 | |
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77
bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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78
kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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79
sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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80
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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81
bracelet
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| n.手镯，臂镯 | |
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82
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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83
dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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84
thrifty
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| adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的 | |
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85
clannish
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| adj.排他的，门户之见的 | |
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86
lodges
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| v.存放( lodge的第三人称单数 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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87
pulp
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| n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆 | |
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88
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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89
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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90
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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91
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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92
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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93
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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94
begrudged
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| 嫉妒( begrudge的过去式和过去分词 )； 勉强做； 不乐意地付出； 吝惜 | |
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95
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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96
indefatigably
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| adv.不厌倦地，不屈不挠地 | |
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97
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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98
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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99
tardy
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| adj.缓慢的，迟缓的 | |
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100
variant
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| adj.不同的，变异的；n.变体，异体 | |
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101
stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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102
persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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103
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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104
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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105
primness
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| n.循规蹈矩，整洁 | |
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106
flirt
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| v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者 | |
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107
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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108
diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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109
tack
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| n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝 | |
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110
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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111
gauge
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| v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器 | |
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112
automobiles
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| n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
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113
kerosene
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| n.(kerosine)煤油，火油 | |
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114
lathered
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| v.（指肥皂）形成泡沫( lather的过去式和过去分词 )；用皂沫覆盖；狠狠地打 | |
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115
varnish
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| n.清漆；v.上清漆；粉饰 | |
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116
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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117
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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118
shack
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| adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚 | |
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119
boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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120
irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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121
sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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122
slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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123
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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124
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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125
skittish
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| adj.易激动的，轻佻的 | |
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126
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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127
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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128
provender
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| n.刍草；秣料 | |
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129
flirting
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 ) | |
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130
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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131
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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132
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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133
machiavellian
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| adj.权谋的，狡诈的 | |
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134
widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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135
piscatorial
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| adj.鱼的；渔业的 | |
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136
pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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137
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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138
lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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139
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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140
bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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141
perilously
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| adv.充满危险地，危机四伏地 | |
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142
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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143
whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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144
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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145
outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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146
chromatic
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| adj.色彩的，颜色的 | |
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147
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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148
doffing
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| n.下筒，落纱v.脱去，（尤指）脱帽( doff的现在分词 ) | |
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149
blithely
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| adv.欢乐地，快活地，无挂虑地 | |
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150
rhythmically
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| adv.有节奏地 | |
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151
cliques
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| n.小集团，小圈子，派系( clique的名词复数 ) | |
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152
factions
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| 组织中的小派别，派系( faction的名词复数 ) | |
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153
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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154
banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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155
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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156
glum
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| adj.闷闷不乐的，阴郁的 | |
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157
hunch
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| n.预感，直觉 | |
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158
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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159
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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160
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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161
plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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162
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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163
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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164
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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165
bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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166
lieutenants
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| n.陆军中尉( lieutenant的名词复数 )；副职官员；空军；仅低于…官阶的官员 | |
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167
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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168
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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169
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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170
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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171
scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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172
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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173
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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174
vacuous
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| adj.空的，漫散的，无聊的，愚蠢的 | |
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