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Reade, Charles, 1814-1884

"A Simpleton"

Here he found attendants
waiting to receive him.
A sheriff's officer took his dogcart and horse under a judgment; the
disturbance this caused collected a tiny crowd, gaping and grinning, and
brought Phoebe's white face and eyes swollen with weeping to the window.
Falcon saw her and brazened it out. "Take them," said he, with an oath.
"I'll have a better turn-out by to-morrow, breakfast-time."
The crowd cheered him for his spirit.
He got down, lit a cigar, chaffed the officer and the crowd, and was, on
the whole, admired.
Then another officer, who had been hunting him in couples with the
other, stepped forward and took HIM, for the balance of a judgment debt.
Then the swell's cigar fell out of his mouth, and he was seriously
alarmed. "Why, Cartwright," said he, "this is too bad. You promised not
to see me this month. You passed me full in the Strand."
"You are mistaken, sir," said Cartwright, with sullen irony. "I've got a
twin-brother; a many takes him for me, till they finds the difference."
Then, lowering his voice, "What call had you to boast in your club you
had made it right with Bill Cartwright, and he'd never see you? That got
about, and so I was bound to see you or lose my bread.


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