小说分类
选择字号:【大】【中】【小】
关灯
护眼
Chapter Nine.

关注小说网官方公众号(noveltingroom),原版名著免费领。


 Years passed away, and with them many old things vanished, while many novelties appeared, but the Red Brigade remained much as it was, excepting that it was, if possible, smarter and more energetic than ever.
 
In the lobby of our West-end station one pleasant summer evening, the men sat and stood about the open door beside the trim engines and matériel of their profession, chatting heartily as men are won’t to do when in high health and spirits. There were new faces among them, but there were also several that had long been familiar there. The stalwart form of Joe Dashwood was there, so little altered by time that there was nothing about him to tell that he was passing the period of middle-age, save a few grey hairs that mingled here and there with the dark curls on his temples. Bob Clazie was there also, but he had not stood the trials of his profession so well as Joe—probably his constitution was not so strong. A disagreeable short cough harassed him, though he made light of it. Frequent scorching, smoking, and partial suffocation had increased his wrinkles and rendered his eyelids permanently red. Nevertheless, although nearly fifty years old, Bob Clazie was still one of the best men in the Brigade.
 
Joe Dashwood wore a pair of brass epaulettes on his shoulders, which indicated that he had attained to the highest rank in the service, short of the chief command.
 
He was giving directions to one of the younger men of the force, when a tall strapping young man, with a plain but open and singularly pleasing countenance entered, and going up to him shook him warmly by the hand.
 
“Well, Bob, what’s the news? you seem excited this evening,” said Joe.
 
“So I am, Joe; and with good reason too, for several pleasant things have happened to-day. In the first place, my friend and patron—”
 
“That’s the old gentleman with the ruddy face and the bald head?” interrupted Joe.
 
“Yes, and with the kind heart. Don’t ever omit the kind heart, Joe, in your description of him, else you’ll only have painted half the portrait.”
 
“Well, but the kind heart ain’t quite so visible at first sight as the ruddy face and bald head, you know.”
 
“Perhaps not; but if you watched him long enough to see him act, you’d perceive the kind heart as plain as if it hung at his button-hole, and beat like a sixty-horse-power steam-engine outside his ribs instead of inside,” said the strapping young man with quite a glow of enthusiasm. “Oh, if you could only see how that old gentleman labours, and strives, and wears himself out, in his desire to rescue what they call our Street Arabs, you couldn’t help loving him as I do. But I’m wandering from the pleasant things I’ve got to tell about. Through his influence my friend Jim has obtained a good appointment on the Metropolitan Railway, which gives him a much better salary than he had in Skrimp’s office, and opens up a prospect of promotion; so, although it sends him underground before his natural time, he says he is quite content to be buried alive, especially as it makes the prospect of his union with a very small and exceedingly charming little girl with black eyes not quite so remote as it was. In the second place, you’ll be glad to hear that the directors of the insurance office with which I am connected have raised my salary, influenced thereto by the same old gentleman with the ruddy face, bald head, and kind heart—”

分享到:


返回目录
上一章: Chapter Eight.
下一章: 没有了

©英文小说网 2005-2010