“IT WAS FOR ME––YOU WENT. DON’T YOU––DIDN’T YOU KNOW IT
WAS––JUST BECAUSE OF YOU––THAT I WANTED THEM––AT––ALL?”
ONCE TO
EVERY MAN
BY
LARRY EVANS
ILLUSTRATED BY
ANTON OTTO FISCHER
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK
Copyright, 1913, by
The Metropolitan Magazine Company.
Copyright, 1914, by
The Metropolitan Magazine Company.
Copyright, 1914, by
The H. K. Fly Company.
TO
MINE OWN PEOPLE
ILLUSTRATIONS
| “It Was for Me––You Went. Don’t You––Didn’t You Know It Was––Just Because of You––That I Wanted Them––At––All?” | Frontispiece |
| “Hold Me Tight––Oh! Hold Me Tighter! for They Forgot Me, Too, Denny; They Forgot Me Too!” | 53 |
| “Dryad, It’s All Right––It’s Always Been All Right––With Us! They Lied––They Lied and They Knew They Were Lying!” | 85 |
| “What You Need, Gentlemen, Is a Trifle Wider Readin’––Just a Trifle! for You Ain’t Bein’ Well Posted on Facts!” | 149 |
The most remarkable thing about the boy washis eyes––that is, if any man with his spreadof shoulder and masculine grace of flat muscledhips could be spoken of any longer as a boy, merelybecause his years happened to number twenty-four.
They, however––the eyes––were gray; not a toolight, off-color, gleaming gray, but more the tone ofslate, deep when one chanced to find oneself peeringdeep into them. And they were old. Any spontaneityof youth which might have flashed from themat one time had faded entirely and left a sort of wistfulsophistry behind, an almost plaintive hunger whichmade the pity of his shoulder-stoop––still mercifullyonly a prophecy of what the next twenty years of toilmight leave it––an even more pitiful thing. His sheerbigness should have been still unspoiled; instead itwas already beginning to lose its rebound; it wasgrowing imperceptibly slack, like the springy strideof a colt put too soon to heavy harness.
Late afternoon was giving way to nightfall––alo