Queed | Page 2

Long Time,
and why_. 300
XXV _Recording a Discussion about the Reformatory between Editor

West and his Dog-like Admirer, the City Boss; and a Briefer
Conversation between West and Prof. Nicolovius's Boarder_. 312
XXVI _In which Queed forces the Old Professor's Hand, and the Old
Professor takes to his Bed_. 330
XXVII _Sharlee Weyland reads the Morning Post; of Rev. Mr. Dayne's
Fight at Ephesus and the Telephone Message that never came; of the
Editor's Comment upon the Assistant Editor's Resignation, which
perhaps lacked Clarity; and of how Eight Men elect a Mayor_. 345
XXVIII _How Words can be like Blows, and Blue Eyes stab deep; how
Queed sits by a Bedside and reviews his Life; and how a Thought leaps
at him and will not down_. 363
XXIX _In which Queed's Shoulders can bear One Man's Roguery and
Another's Dishonor, and of what these Fardels cost him: how for the
Second Time in his Life he stays out of Bed to think_. 375
XXX _Death of the Old Professor, and how Queed finds that his List of
Friends has grown; a Last Will and Testament; Exchange of Letters
among Prominent Attorneys, which unhappily proves futile_. 387
XXXI _God moves in a Mysterious Way: how the finished Miss Avery
appears as the Instrument of Providence; how Sharlee sees her Idol of
Many Years go toppling in the Dust, and how it is her Turn to meditate
in the Still Watches_. 397
XXXII _Second Meeting between a Citizen and the Great
Pleasure-Dog Behemoth, involving Plans for Two New Homes_. 416

QUEED
I
_First Meeting between a citizen in Spectacles and the Great
Pleasure-Dog Behemoth; also of Charles Gardiner West, a Personage at

Thirty._
It was five of a November afternoon, crisp and sharp, and already
running into dusk. Down the street came a girl and a dog, rather a small
girl and quite a behemothian dog. If she had been a shade smaller, or he
a shade more behemothian, the thing would have approached a parody
on one's settled idea of a girl and a dog. She had enough height to save
that, but it was the narrowest sort of squeak.
The dog was of the breed which are said to come trotting into Alpine
monasteries of a winter's night with fat American travelers in their
mouths, frozen stiff. He was extremely large for his age, whatever that
was. On the other hand, the girl was small for her age, which was
twenty-four next month; not so much short, you understand, for she
was of a reasonable height, as of a dainty slimness, a certain exquisite
reticence of the flesh. She had cares and duties and even sober-sided
responsibilities in this world, beyond the usual run of girls. Yet her hat
was decidedly of the mode that year; her suit was smartly and
engagingly cut; her furs were glossy and black and big. Her face, it may
be said here as well as later, had in its time given pleasure to the male
sex, and some food for critical conversation to the female. A good
many of the young men whom she met along the way this afternoon
appeared distinctly pleased to speak to her.
The girl was Sharlee Weyland, and Sharlee was the short for Charlotte
Lee, as invented by herself some score of years before. One baby-name
in a hundred sticks through a lifetime, and hers was the one in that
particular hundred. Of the young men along the way, one was so lucky
as to catch her eye through a large plate-glass window. It was Semple
and West's window, the ground-floor one in the great new
Commonwealth Building, of which the town is rightly so proud, and
the young man was no other than West, Charles Gardiner himself. A
smile warmed his good-looking face when he met the eye of the girl
and the dog; he waved a hand at them. That done, he immediately
vanished from the window and reached for his hat and coat; gave
hurried directions to a clerk and a stenographer; and sallying forth,
overtook the pair before they had reached the next corner.

"Everything's topsy-turvy," said he, coming alongside. "Here you are
frivolously walking downtown with a dog. Usually at this time you are
most earnestly walking uptown, and not a sign of a dog as far as the eye
can see. What on earth's happened?"
"Oh, how do you do?" said she, apparently not displeased to find
herself thus surprised from the rear. "I too have a mad kind of feeling,
as though the world had gone upside down. Don't be amazed if I
suddenly clutch out at you to keep from falling. But the name of it--of
this feeling--is having a holiday. Mr. Dayne went to New York at
12.20."
"Ah, I see.