DOI Artikel:
Harland, Henry: Merely Players
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25499#0024
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Merely Players
In other respects, however, they were as unlike as unlike may be.
Thirty was plump and rosy and full-blown, with a laughing good-
humoured face, and merry big blue eyes ; eight and twenty, thin,
tall, and listless-looking, his face pale and aquiline, his eyes dark,
morose. They had finished their coffee, and now the plump man
was nibbling sweetmeats, which he selected with much careful
discrimination from an assortment in a porcelain dish. The thin
man was drinking something green, possibly chartreuse.
“ Women are a pack of samenesses,” he grumbled, “and love-
affairs are damnable iterations.”
“ Oh,” cried out his comrade, in a tone of plaintive protest, “ I
said red-haired. You can’t pretend that red-haired women are the
same.”
“ The same, with the addition of a little henna,” the pale young
man argued wearily.
“ It may surprise you to learn that I was thinking of red-haired
women who are born red-haired,” his friend remarked, from an
altitude.
“ In that case,” said he, “ I admit there is a difference—they
have white eyelashes.” And he emptied his glass of green stuff.
“ Is all this apropos of boots ? ” he questioned.
The other regarded him solemnly. “It’s Apropos of your
immortal soul,” he answered, nodding his head. “It’s medicine
for a mind diseased. The only thing that will wake you up, and
put a little life and human nature in you, is a love-affair with a red-
haired woman. Red in the hair means fire in the heart. It
means all sorts of things. If you really wish to please me, Uncle,
you’ll go and fall in love with a red-haired woman.”
The younger man, whom the elder addressed as Uncle, shrugged
his shoulders, and gave a little sniff. Then he lighted a cigarette.
The elder man left the table, and went to the open window.
“ Heavens,
Merely Players
In other respects, however, they were as unlike as unlike may be.
Thirty was plump and rosy and full-blown, with a laughing good-
humoured face, and merry big blue eyes ; eight and twenty, thin,
tall, and listless-looking, his face pale and aquiline, his eyes dark,
morose. They had finished their coffee, and now the plump man
was nibbling sweetmeats, which he selected with much careful
discrimination from an assortment in a porcelain dish. The thin
man was drinking something green, possibly chartreuse.
“ Women are a pack of samenesses,” he grumbled, “and love-
affairs are damnable iterations.”
“ Oh,” cried out his comrade, in a tone of plaintive protest, “ I
said red-haired. You can’t pretend that red-haired women are the
same.”
“ The same, with the addition of a little henna,” the pale young
man argued wearily.
“ It may surprise you to learn that I was thinking of red-haired
women who are born red-haired,” his friend remarked, from an
altitude.
“ In that case,” said he, “ I admit there is a difference—they
have white eyelashes.” And he emptied his glass of green stuff.
“ Is all this apropos of boots ? ” he questioned.
The other regarded him solemnly. “It’s Apropos of your
immortal soul,” he answered, nodding his head. “It’s medicine
for a mind diseased. The only thing that will wake you up, and
put a little life and human nature in you, is a love-affair with a red-
haired woman. Red in the hair means fire in the heart. It
means all sorts of things. If you really wish to please me, Uncle,
you’ll go and fall in love with a red-haired woman.”
The younger man, whom the elder addressed as Uncle, shrugged
his shoulders, and gave a little sniff. Then he lighted a cigarette.
The elder man left the table, and went to the open window.
“ Heavens,