|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 4
Ashe Marson had done so. He had rented the second-floor front of
Number Seven.
Twenty-six years before this story opens there had been born to
Joseph Marson, minister, and Sarah his wife, of Hayling,
Massachusetts, in the United States of America, a son. This son,
christened Ashe after a wealthy uncle who subsequently
double-crossed them by leaving his money to charities, in due
course proceeded to Harvard to study for the ministry. So far as
can be ascertained from contemporary records, he did not study a
great deal for the ministry; but he did succeed in running the
mile in four minutes and a half and the half mile at a
correspondingly rapid speed, and his researches in the art of
long jumping won him the respect of all.
That he should be awarded, at the conclusion of his Harvard
career, one of those scholarships at Oxford University instituted
by the late Cecil Rhodes for the encouragement of the liberal
arts, was a natural sequence of events.
That was how Ashe came to be in England.
The rest of Ashe's history follows almost automatically. He won
his blue for athletics at Oxford, and gladdened thousands by
winning the mile and the half mile two years in succession
against Cambridge at Queen's Club. But owing to the pressure of
other engagements he unfortunately omitted to do any studying,
and when the hour of parting arrived he was peculiarly unfitted
for any of the learned professions. Having, however, managed to
obtain a sort of degree, enough to enable him to call himself a
Bachelor of Arts, and realizing that you can fool some of the
people some of the time, he applied for and secured a series of
private tutorships.
A private tutor is a sort of blend of poor relation and
nursemaid, and few of the stately homes of England are without
one. He is supposed to instill learning and deportment into the
small son of the house; but what he is really there for is to
prevent the latter from being a nuisance to his parents when he
is home from school on his vacation.
Having saved a little money at this dreadful trade, Ashe came to
London and tried newspaper work. After two years of moderate
success he got in touch with the Mammoth Publishing Company.
The Mammoth Publishing Company, which controls several important
newspapers, a few weekly journals, and a number of other things,
does not disdain the pennies of the office boy and the junior
clerk. One of its many profitable ventures is a series of
paper-covered tales of crime and adventure. It was here that Ashe
found his niche. Those adventures of Gridley Quayle,
Investigator, which are so popular with a certain section of the
reading public, were his work.
Until the advent of Ashe and Mr. Quayle, the British Pluck
Library had been written by many hands and had included the
adventures of many heroes: but in Gridley Quayle the proprietors
held that the ideal had been reached, and Ashe received a
commission to conduct the entire British Pluck
Library--monthly--himself. On the meager salary paid him for
these labors he had been supporting himself ever since.
That was how Ashe came to be in Arundell Street, Leicester Square,
on this May morning.
He was a tall, well-built, fit-looking young man, with a clear
eye and a strong chin; and he was dressed, as he closed the front
door behind him, in a sweater, flannel trousers, and rubber-soled
gymnasium shoes. In one hand he bore a pair of Indian clubs, in
the other a skipping rope.
Having drawn in and expelled the morning air in a measured and
solemn fashion, which the initiated observer would have
recognized as that scientific deep breathing so popular nowadays,
he laid down his clubs, adjusted his rope and began to skip.
When he had taken the second-floor front of Number Seven, three
months before, Ashe Marson had realized that he must forego those
morning exercises which had become a second nature to him, or
else defy London's unwritten law and brave London's mockery. He
had not hesitated long. Physical fitness was his gospel. On the
subject of exercise he was confessedly a crank. He decided to
defy London.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|