VI A Story with Four Sequels

 IT was Saturday, and Patty had been working ever since breakfast, with a brief pause for luncheon¹, on a paper entitled "Shakspere, the Man." At four o'clock she laid down her pen, pushed her manuscript into the waste-basket, and faced her room-mate defiantly².

"What do I care about Shakspere, the man? He's been dead three hundred years."

 

Priscilla laughed unfeelingly. "What do I care about a frog's nervous system, for the matter of that? But I am writing an interesting monograph³ on it, just the same."

 

"Ah, I dare say you are making a valuable addition to the subject."

 

"It's quite as valuable as your addition to Shaksperiana."

 

Patty dropped a voluble sigh and turned to the window to note that it was raining dismally⁴.

 

"Oh, hand it in," said Priscilla, comfortingly. "You've worked on it all day, and it's probably no worse than the most of your things."

 

"No sense to it," said Patty.

 

"They're used to that," laughed Priscilla.

 

"What are you laughing at, anyway?" Patty asked crossly. "I don't see anything to laugh at in this beastly place. Always having to do what you don't want to do when you most don't want to do it. Just the same, day after day: get up by bells, eat by bells, sleep by bells. I feel like some sort of a delinquent⁵ living in an asylum⁶."

 

Priscilla treated this outburst with the silence it deserved, and Patty turned back to her perusal⁷ of the rain-soaked campus.

 

"I wish something would happen," she said discontentedly. "I think I'll put on a mackintosh and go out in search of adventure."

 

"Pneumonia⁸ will happen if you do."

 

"What business has it to be raining, anyway, when it ought to be snowing?"

 

As this was unanswerable, Priscilla returned to her frogs, and Patty drummed gloomily on the window-pane until a maid appeared with a card.

 

"A caller?" cried Patty. "A missionary⁹! A rescuer! A deliverer! Heaven send it's for me!"

 

"Miss Pond," said Sadie, laying the card on the table.

 

Patty pounced¹⁰ upon it. "'Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope.' Who's he, Pris?"

 

Priscilla wrinkled up her brows. "I don't know; I never heard of him. What do you suppose it can be?"

 

"An adventure—I know it's an adventure. Probably your uncle, that you never heard of, has just died in the South Sea Islands, and left you a fortune because you're his namesake; or else you're a countess by rights, and were stolen from your cradle in infancy¹¹, and he's the lawyer come to tell you about it. I think it might have happened to me, when I'm so bored to death! But hurry up and tell me about it, at least; a second-hand¹² adventure's better than no adventure at all. Yes, your hair is all right; never mind looking in the glass." And Patty pushed her room-mate out of the door, and, sitting down at her desk again, quite cheerfully pulled her discarded paper out of the waste-basket and began re-reading it with evident approval.

 

Priscilla returned before she had finished. "He didn't ask for me at all," she announced. "He asked for Miss McKay."

 

"Miss McKay?"

 

"That junior with the hair," she explained a trifle vaguely¹³.

 

"How disgusting!" cried Patty. "I had it all planned how I was going to live with you in your castle up in the Hartz Mountains, and now it turns out that Miss McKay is the countess, and I don't even know her. What did the man look like, and what did he do?"

 

"Well, he looked rather frightened, and didn't do anything but stammer¹⁴. There were two men in the reception-room, and of course I picked out the wrong one and begged his pardon and asked if he were Mr. Stanthrope. He said no; his name was Wiggins. So then the only thing left for me to do was to beg the other one's pardon.

 

"He was sitting in that high-backed green chair, with his eyes glued to his shoes, and holding his hat and cane¹⁵ in front of him like breastworks, as if he were preparing to repel¹⁶ an attack. He didn't look very approachable, but I boldly accosted¹⁷ him and asked if he were Mr. Stanthrope. He stood up and stammered¹⁸ and blushed and looked as if he wanted to deny it, but finally acknowledged that he was, and then stood politely waiting for me to state my business! I explained, and he stammered some more, and finally got out that he had called to see Miss McKay, and that the maid must have made a mistake. He was quite cross about it, you know, and acted as if I had insulted him; and the other man—the horrible Wiggins one—laughed, and then looked out of the window and pretended he hadn't. I apologized,—though I couldn't for the life of me see what there was to apologize for,—and told him I would send the maid for Miss McKay, and backed out."

 

"Is that all?" Patty asked disappointedly. "If I couldn't have a better adventure than that, I shouldn't have any."

 

"But the funny thing is that when I told Sadie, she insisted that he had asked for me."

 

"Ha! The plot thickens, after all. What does it mean? Did he look like a detective, or merely a pickpocket¹⁹?"

 

"He looked like a very ordinarily embarrassed young man."

 

Patty shook her head dejectedly. "There's a mystery somewhere, but I don't see that it affords much entertainment. I dare say that when Miss McKay came he told her he hadn't asked for her at all; he had asked for Miss Higginbotham. The only explanation I can think of is that he is insane, and there are so many insane people in the world that it isn't even interesting."

 

Patty recounted the story of Priscilla's caller at the dinner-table that night.

 

"I know the sequel," said Lucille Carter. "The other man, the Mr. Wiggins, is Bonnie Connaught's cousin; and he told her about some young man who came out in the car with him, and asked for Miss Pond at the door, and then all of a sudden seemed to change his mind, and went tearing down the corridor after the maid, yelling, "Hi, there! Hi, there!" at the top of his voice; but he couldn't catch her, and when Miss Pond came he pretended he had asked for some one else."

 

"Is that all?" asked Patty. "I don't think it is much of a sequel. It just proves that there's a plot against Priscilla's life, and I already knew that. I intend to ask Miss McKay about him. I don't know her, except by sight, but in a case of life and death like this, I don't think it's necessary to wait for an introduction."

 

The next evening Patty announced: "Sequel number two! Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope lives in New York, and is Miss McKay's brother's best friend. She has only met him once before, and doesn't know any of his past affiliations²⁰. But the queer thing is that he never mentioned to her anything about Priscilla. Shouldn't you naturally think he would have told her about such a funny mistake?

 

"In my opinion," Patty continued solemnly, "it was plainly premeditated. He is undoubtedly²¹ a villain²² in disguise, and he used his acquaintance with Miss McKay as a cloak to elude²³ detection. My theory is this: He got Priscilla's name out of the catalogue, and came here intending to murder her for her jools; but when he saw how big she was he was scared and so abandoned his dastardly intent. Now if he had chosen me, my body would, at this moment, have been concealed²⁴ behind the sofa, and my class-pin reposing²⁵ in the murderer's pocket."

 

Patty shuddered²⁶. "Think what I escaped. And all the time I was grumbling²⁷ because nothing ever happens here!"

 

A few days later she appeared at the table with a further announcement: "I have the pleasure of offering for your perusal, young ladies, the third and last sequel in the great Stanthrope-Pond-McKay mystery. And I hereby take the opportunity of apologizing to Mr. Stanthrope for my unworthy suspicions. He is not a burglar, nor a detective, nor a murderer, nor even a lawyer, but just a poor young man with a buried romance."

 

"How did you find out?"—in a chorus of voices.

 

"I just met Miss McKay in the hall, and she has been in New York, where her brother told her the particulars. It seems that three or four years ago Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope was engaged to a girl here in college named Alice Pond—she is now Mrs. Hiram Brown, but that has nothing to do with the story.

 

"Being in town last Saturday on business, he decided²⁸ to run out and call on Miss McKay, as he was such a friend of her brother's—and also for the sake of old times. He amused himself all the way out in the car by resurrecting his buried romance, and he kept getting more and more pensive²⁹ with every mile. When he finally reached the door and handed his card to the maid, he abstractedly called for Miss Pond just as he used to do four years ago. He didn't realize at first what he had done. Then it came over him in a flash, but he couldn't catch Sadie. He knew, of course, that the other man had heard, and he sat there scared to death, trying to think of some plausible³⁰ excuse, and momentarily expecting a strange Miss Pond to pop in and demand an explanation.

 

"Sure enough, the curtains parted, and a tall, beautiful, stately creature (I quote Miss McKay's brother) swept into the room, and, approaching the wrong man, asked him in haughty³¹ tones if he were Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope. He very properly denied it, whereupon there was nothing for the right Mr. Stanthrope to do but stand up and acknowledge it like a man, which he did; but there he stuck. His imagination was numbed³², paralyzed; so he turned it off on poor Sadie, and all the time he knew that the other man knew that he was lying. And that is all," Patty finished. "It's not much of a story, but such as it is, it's a blessing³³ to have it concluded."

 

"Patty," called Priscilla, from the other end of the table, "have you been telling them that absurd story?"

 

"Why not?" asked Patty. "Having heard so many sequels, they naturally wanted to hear the last."

 

Priscilla laughed. "But yours doesn't happen to be the last. I know a still later one."

 

"Later than Patty's?" the table demanded.

 

"Yes, later than Patty's. It isn't really a sequel; it's just an appendix. I shouldn't tell you, only you'll find it out, so I might as well. Miss McKay has invited two men for the junior party, and both have accepted. As two men are hard to manage, she has (by request) asked me to take care of one of them—namely, Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope."

 

Patty sighed. "I see a whole series of sequels stretching away into the future. It's worse than the Elsie Books!"

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1 luncheon   

n.午宴，午餐，便宴

参考例句：

• We have luncheon at twelve o'clock.我们十二点钟用午餐。
• I have a luncheon engagement.我午饭有约。

2 defiantly   

adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地

参考例句：

• Braving snow and frost, the plum trees blossomed defiantly. 红梅傲雪凌霜开。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She tilted her chin at him defiantly. 她向他翘起下巴表示挑衅。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 monograph   

n.专题文章，专题著作

参考例句：

• This monograph belongs to the category of serious popular books.这本专著是一本较高深的普及读物。
• It's a monograph you wrote six years ago.这是你六年前写的的专论。

4 dismally   

adv.阴暗地，沉闷地

参考例句：

• Fei Little Beard assented dismally. 费小胡子哭丧着脸回答。 来自子夜部分
• He began to howl dismally. 它就凄凉地吠叫起来。 来自辞典例句

5 delinquent   

adj.犯法的，有过失的；n.违法者

参考例句：

• Most delinquent children have deprived backgrounds.多数少年犯都有未受教育的背景。
• He is delinquent in paying his rent.他拖欠房租。

6 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

7 perusal   

n.细读，熟读；目测

参考例句：

• Peter Cooke undertook to send each of us a sample contract for perusal.彼得·库克答应给我们每人寄送一份合同样本供阅读。
• A perusal of the letters which we have published has satisfied him of the reality of our claim.读了我们的公开信后，他终于相信我们的要求的确是真的。

8 pneumonia   

n.肺炎

参考例句：

• Cage was struck with pneumonia in her youth.凯奇年轻时得过肺炎。
• Pneumonia carried him off last week.肺炎上星期夺去了他的生命。

9 missionary   

adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士

参考例句：

• She taught in a missionary school for a couple of years.她在一所教会学校教了两年书。
• I hope every member understands the value of missionary work. 我希望教友都了解传教工作的价值。

10 pounced   

v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击）

参考例句：

• As soon as I opened my mouth, the teacher pounced on me. 我一张嘴就被老师抓住呵斥了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The police pounced upon the thief. 警察向小偷扑了过去。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

11 infancy   

n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期

参考例句：

• He came to England in his infancy.他幼年时期来到英国。
• Their research is only in its infancy.他们的研究处于初级阶段。

12 second-hand   

adj.用过的，旧的，二手的

参考例句：

• I got this book by chance at a second-hand bookshop.我赶巧在一家旧书店里买到这本书。
• They will put all these second-hand goods up for sale.他们将把这些旧货全部公开出售。

13 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

14 stammer   

n.结巴，口吃；v.结结巴巴地说

参考例句：

• He's got a bad stammer.他口吃非常严重。
• We must not try to play off the boy troubled with a stammer.我们不可以取笑这个有口吃病的男孩。

15 cane   

n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的

参考例句：

• This sugar cane is quite a sweet and juicy.这甘蔗既甜又多汁。
• English schoolmasters used to cane the boys as a punishment.英国小学老师过去常用教鞭打男学生作为惩罚。

16 repel   

v.击退，抵制，拒绝，排斥

参考例句：

• A country must have the will to repel any invader.一个国家得有决心击退任何入侵者。
• Particles with similar electric charges repel each other.电荷同性的分子互相排斥。

17 accosted   

v.走过去跟…讲话( accost的过去式和过去分词 )；跟…搭讪；（乞丐等）上前向…乞讨；（妓女等）勾搭

参考例句：

• She was accosted in the street by a complete stranger. 在街上，一个完全陌生的人贸然走到她跟前搭讪。
• His benevolent nature prevented him from refusing any beggar who accosted him. 他乐善好施的本性使他不会拒绝走上前向他行乞的任何一个乞丐。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 stammered   

v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He stammered most when he was nervous. 他一紧张往往口吃。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, \"What do you mean?\" 巴萨往椅背上一靠，结结巴巴地说，“你是什么意思？” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

19 pickpocket   

n.扒手；v.扒窃

参考例句：

• The pickpocket pinched her purse and ran away.扒手偷了她的皮夹子跑了。
• He had his purse stolen by a pickpocket.他的钱包被掏了。

20 affiliations   

n.联系( affiliation的名词复数 )；附属机构；亲和性；接纳

参考例句：

• She had affiliations of her own in every capital. 她原以为自己在欧洲各国首府都有熟人。 来自辞典例句
• The society has many affiliations throughout the country. 这个社团在全国有很多关系。 来自辞典例句

21 undoubtedly   

adv.确实地，无疑地

参考例句：

• It is undoubtedly she who has said that.这话明明是她说的。
• He is undoubtedly the pride of China.毫无疑问他是中国的骄傲。

22 villain   

n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因

参考例句：

• He was cast as the villain in the play.他在戏里扮演反面角色。
• The man who played the villain acted very well.扮演恶棍的那个男演员演得很好。

23 elude   

v.躲避，困惑

参考例句：

• If you chase it,it will elude you.如果你追逐着它， 它会躲避你。
• I had dared and baffled his fury.I must elude his sorrow.我曾经面对过他的愤怒，并且把它挫败了；现在我必须躲避他的悲哀。

24 concealed   

a.隐藏的，隐蔽的

参考例句：

• The paintings were concealed beneath a thick layer of plaster. 那些画被隐藏在厚厚的灰泥层下面。
• I think he had a gun concealed about his person. 我认为他当时身上藏有一支枪。

25 reposing   

v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• His parents were now reposing in the local churchyard. 他的双亲现在长眠于本地教堂墓地。 来自辞典例句
• The picture shows a nude reposing on a couch. 这幅画表现的是一个人赤身体躺在长沙发上。 来自辞典例句

26 shuddered   

v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• He slammed on the brakes and the car shuddered to a halt. 他猛踩刹车，车颤抖着停住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I shuddered at the sight of the dead body. 我一看见那尸体就战栗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

27 grumbling   

adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的

参考例句：

• She's always grumbling to me about how badly she's treated at work. 她总是向我抱怨她在工作中如何受亏待。
• We didn't hear any grumbling about the food. 我们没听到过对食物的抱怨。

28 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

29 pensive   

a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的

参考例句：

• He looked suddenly sombre,pensive.他突然看起来很阴郁，一副忧虑的样子。
• He became so pensive that she didn't like to break into his thought.他陷入沉思之中,她不想打断他的思路。

30 plausible   

adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的

参考例句：

• His story sounded plausible.他说的那番话似乎是真实的。
• Her story sounded perfectly plausible.她的说辞听起来言之有理。

31 haughty   

adj.傲慢的，高傲的

参考例句：

• He gave me a haughty look and walked away.他向我摆出傲慢的表情后走开。
• They were displeased with her haughty airs.他们讨厌她高傲的派头。

32 numbed   

v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His mind has been numbed. 他已麻木不仁。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He was numbed with grief. 他因悲伤而昏迷了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

33 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

• The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
• A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。