Short Fiction by Ernest Hemingway (best free ebook reader for android .txt) 📕

Here’s five dollars for you, boys.” His eyes were shining. “Get some more to eat. Take a trip somewhere. This is the happiest day of my life.”

He stood up from his stool before the counter, shook the one Indian impulsively by the hand, rested his hand for a minute on the other Indian’s shoulder, opened the door of the beanery, and strode out into the night.

The two Indians looked at one another. “White chief heap nice fella,” observed the big Indian.

“Think him was in the war?” asked the little Indian.

“Me wonder,” the big Indian said.

“White chief said he buy me new artificial arm,” the little Indian grumbled.

“Maybe you get more than that,” the big Indian said.

“Me wonder,” the little Indian said. They went on eating.

At the other end of the counter of the beanery a marriage was coming to an end.

Scripps O’Neil and his wife sat side by side. Mrs. Scripps knew now. She couldn’t hold him. She had tried and failed. She had lost. She knew it was a losing game. There was no holding him now. Mandy was talking again. Talking. Talking. Always talking. That interminable stream of literary gossip that was bringing her, Diana’s, marriage to an end. She couldn’t hold him. He was going. Going. Going away from her. Diana sitting there in misery. Scripps listening to Mandy talking. Mandy talking. Talking. Talking. The drummer, an old friend now, the drummer, sitting reading his Detroit News. She couldn’t hold him. She couldn’t hold him. She couldn’t hold him.

The little Indian got up from his stool at the beanery counter, and went over to the window. The glass on the window was covered with thick rimy frost. The little Indian breathed on the frozen windowpane, rubbed the spot bare with the empty sleeve of his mackinaw coat and looked out into the night. Suddenly he turned from the window and rushed out into the night. The tall Indian watched him go, leisurely finished his meal, took a toothpick, placed it between his teeth, and then he too followed his friend out into the night.

XV

They were alone in the beanery now. Scripps and Mandy and Diana. Only the drummer was with them. He was an old friend now. But his nerves were on edge tonight. He folded his paper abruptly and started for the door.

“See you all later,” he said. He went out into the night. It seemed the only thing to do. He did it.

Only three of them in the beanery now. Scripps and Mandy and Diana. Only those three. Mandy was talking. Leaning on the counter and talking. Scripps with his eyes fixed on Mandy. Diana made no pretense of listening now. She knew it was over. It was all over now. But she would make one more attempt. One more last gallant try. Perhaps she still could hold him. Perhaps it had all been just a dream. She steadied her voice and then she spoke.

“Scripps, dear,” she said. Her voice shook a little. She steadied it.

“What’s on your mind?” Scripps asked abruptly. Ah, there it was. That horrid clipped speech again.

“Scripps, dear, wouldn’t you like to come home?” Diana’s voice quavered. “There’s a new Mercury.” She had changed from the London Mercury to The American Mercury just to please Scripps. “It just came. I wish you felt like coming home, Scripps, there’s a splendid thing in this Mercury. Do come home, Scripps, I’ve never asked anything of you before. Come home, Scripps! Oh, won’t you come home?”

Scripps looked up. Diana’s heart beat faster. Perhaps he was coming. Perhaps she was holding him. Holding him. Holding him.

“Do come, Scripps, dear,” Diana said softly. “There’s a wonderful editorial in it by Mencken about chiropractors.”

Scripps looked away.

“Won’t you come, Scripps?” Diana pleaded.

“No,” Scripps said. “I don’t give a damn about Mencken any more.”

Diana dropped her head. “Oh, Scripps,” she said. “Oh, Scripps.” This was the end. She had her answer now. She had lost him. Lost him. Lost him. It was over. Finished. Done for. She sat crying silently. Mandy was talking again.

Suddenly Diana straightened up. She had one last request to make. One thing she would ask him. Only one. He might refuse her. He might not grant it. But she would ask him.

“Scripps,” she said.

“What’s the trouble?” Scripps turned in irritation. Perhaps, after all, he was sorry for her. He wondered.

“Can I take the bird, Scripps?” Diana’s voice broke.

“Sure,” said Scripps. “Why not?”

Diana picked up the birdcage. The bird was asleep. Perched on one leg as on that night when they had first met. What was it he was like? Ah, yes. Like an old osprey. An old, old osprey from her own Lake Country. She held the cage to her tightly.

“Thank you, Scripps,” she said. “Thank you for this bird.” Her voice broke. “And now I must be going.”

Quietly, silently, gathering her shawl around her, clutching the cage with the sleeping bird and the copy of The Mercury to her breast, with only a backward glance, a last glance at him who had been her Scripps, she opened the door of the beanery, and went out into the night. Scripps did not even see her go. He was intent on what Mandy was saying. Mandy was talking again.

“That bird she just took out,” Mandy was saying.

“Oh, did she take a bird out?” Scripps asked. “Go on with the story.”

“You used to wonder about what sort of bird that was,” Mandy went on.

“That’s right,” Scripps agreed.

“Well that reminds me of a story about Gosse and the Marquis of Buque,” Mandy went on.

“Tell it, Mandy. Tell it,” Scripps urged.

“It seems a great friend of mine, Ford, you’ve heard me speak of him before, was in the marquis’s castle during the war. His regiment was billeted there and the marquis, one of the richest if not the richest man in England, was serving in Ford’s regiment as a private. Ford was sitting in the library one evening. The library