An Officer and a Lady

An Officer and a Lady by Rex Stout

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Authors: Rex Stout
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Philadelphia. But they, poor devils, could be of no use in a financial difficulty. And the others would talk. That would serve his father right—to have it known all over New York that the son of Jonathan Marston had been forced to depend on the assistance of friends to get home when an unforeseen shortage of funds had overtaken him during his travels in Europe. If his father showed no concern for the dignity of the Marston name, why should he ?
    But here, again, entered pride. And the pride of youth, when properly nourished and aroused, is capable of magnificent sacrifices and supreme idiocies. It caused William Frederick to reject with scorn the idea of an appeal for money to his acquaintances; it caused him to regard the conduct of his father with increasing indignation and resentment; it caused him, finally, to resolve grandly that he would make his way home unaided and alone. Sublime resolution!
    He proceeded immediately to the consideration of ways and means. The obvious and ordinary method he dismissed with contempt. It was all very well for common persons to peel potatoes or feed cattle for a passage across the Atlantic—indeed, Tom Driscoll had done it, and he thought none the less of him for it—but such a degradation could not even be thought of in the case of William Frederick Marston. It was a sheer impossibility. In fact, he regarded as absolutely necessary the luxuries and privileges of the first cabin. This greatly increased the difficulty of an otherwise simple task. He must use his wits.
    He used them. A thousand schemes offered themselves to his mind, each to be rejected in its turn. As for earning the money for a passage, that was impossible. He had no ability that was marketable, even in that greatest and most varied of all markets—Paris. He realized it with a sense of amazement.
    But there must be a way. He enlarged his scope of speculation. Stowaway? Bah! Take passage on a liner, pretend to have lost his ticket, and trust to Fortune and the name of Marston? But that would mean an appeal to his father, perhaps even a demand on him by the steamship company. Besides, there was the fare to Cherbourg, and incidentals. Appeal to Ambassador Halleck? But that, again, would mean an appeal to his father, though indirectly.
    If he only possessed Tom Driscoll’s experience and daring! Tom could do anything—and would. And was not he the equal of Tom Driscoll? Ha! His pride rose higher and higher, carrying William Frederick with it in ever-widening circles, until finally he arrived in the realm of pure artistic creation. Here the question of morality ceases to exist. The intellect, freed from the troublesome problems of ethics and legality, conceives, with a sole and single aim, the satisfaction of its own desires.
    And then, suddenly, the face of the young man was illumined with a great light. This gave place to a deep, painful frown; and the frown, in its turn, to a sublime and portentous grin. He crossed to the table for a cigarette and finding the box empty, fished one of his discarded stubs from the porcelain urn and lit it with the detached air of a genius at his easel.
    “After all,” he muttered, “I shall have to ask Tom to help, but not with money. The question is, will he do it? Well—he must . I’ll make it as strong as I can. And—let’s see—there’s the William Penn Tablet, and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, and the Statue of Franklin, and the Old Tower—”
    William Frederick Marston had achieved an immortal conception.
    At this point this tale assumes the dignity and importance of history, and we shall let the chroniclers speak for themselves. From the Philadelphia Clarion, September 21:
    LIBERTY BELL DEFACED
    Name of French Palmist Appears
    in Red Paint on its Surface
Police are at a Loss to Discover Perpetrator of Deed of Vandalism and are in Communication with the State Department at Washington.
    Late last evening, or early this morning, some person or persons entered Independence

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