登陆注册
5406200000030

第30章

In the course of the interview given to the explaining of business and legal detail which took place between Mr.Palford and his client the following morning, Tembarom's knowledge of his situation extended itself largely, and at the same time added in a proportionate degree to his sense of his own incongruity as connected with it.He sat at a table in Palford's private sitting-room at the respectable, old-fashioned hotel the solicitor had chosen - sat and listened, and answered questions and asked them, until his head began to feel as though it were crammed to bursting with extraordinary detail.

It was all extraordinary to him.He had had no time for reading and no books to read, and therefore knew little of fiction.He was entirely ignorant of all romance but such as the New York papers provided.This was highly colored, but it did not deal with events connected with the possessors of vast English estates and the details of their habits and customs.His geographical knowledge of Great Britain was simple and largely incorrect.Information concerning its usual conditions and aspects had come to him through talk of international marriages and cup races, and had made but little impression upon him.He liked New York - its noise, its streets, its glare, its Sunday newspapers, with their ever-increasing number of sheets, and pictures of everything on earth which could be photographed.His choice, when he could allow himself a fifty-cent seat at the theater, naturally ran to productions which were farcical or cheerfully musical.He had never reached serious drama, perhaps because he had never had money enough to pay for entrance to anything like half of the "shows" the other fellows recommended.He was totally unprepared for the facing of any kind of drama as connected with himself.The worst of it was that it struck him as being of the nature of farce when regarded from the normal New York point of view.If he had somehow had the luck to come into the possession of money in ways which were familiar to him, - to "strike it rich" in the way of a "big job" or "deal," - he would have been better able to adjust himself to circumstances.He might not have known how to spend his money, but he would have spent it in New York on New York joys.There would have been no foreign remoteness about the thing, howsoever fantastically unexpected such fortune might have been.At any rate, in New York he would have known the names of places and things.

Through a large part of his interview with Palford his elbow rested on the table, and he held his chin with his hand and rubbed it thoughtfully.The last Temple Temple Barholm had been an eccentric and uncompanionable person.He had lived alone and had not married.He had cherished a prejudice against the man who would have succeeded him as next of kin if he had not died young.People had been of the opinion that he had disliked him merely because he did not wish to be reminded that some one else must some day inevitably stand in his shoes, and own the possessions of which he himself was arrogantly fond.There were always more female Temple Barholms than male ones, and the families were small.The relative who had emigrated to Brooklyn had been a comparatively unknown person.His only intercourse with the head of the house had been confined to a begging letter, written from America when his circumstances were at their worst.It was an ill-mannered and ill-expressed letter, which had been considered presuming, and had been answered chillingly with a mere five-pound note, clearly explained as a final charity.This begging letter, which bitterly contrasted the writer's poverty with his indifferent relative's luxuries, had, by a curious trick of chance which preserved it, quite extraordinarily turned up during an examination of apparently unimportant, forgotten papers, and had furnished a clue in the search for next of kin.The writer had greatly annoyed old Mr.

Temple Barholm by telling him that he had called his son by his name -"not that there was ever likely to be anything in it for him." But a waif of the New York streets who was known as "Tem" or "Tembarom" was not a link easily attached to any chain, and the search had been long and rather hopeless.It had, however, at last reached Mrs.Bowse's boarding-house and before Mr.Palford sat Mr.Temple Temple Barholm, a cheap young man in cheap clothes, and speaking New York slang with a nasal accent.Mr.Palford, feeling him appalling and absolutely without the pale, was still aware that he stood in the position of an important client of the firm of Palford & Grimby.There was a section of the offices at Lincoln's Inn devoted to documents representing a lifetime of attention to the affairs of the Temple Barholm estates.It was greatly to be hoped that the crass ignorance and commonness of this young outsider would not cause impossible complications.

"He knows nothing! He knows nothing!" Palford found himself forced to exclaim mentally not once, but a hundred times, in the course of their talk.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 每天一定要读的人生感悟

    每天一定要读的人生感悟

    有人认为,人生来就是为了吃苦,他们把生活比作漫长的劳役。又有人说,人们哭着喊着来到这个世界,然后痛苦地生活着,最后失望地死去。生活并非如此,人是生活的主人,而不是生活的俘虏。我们应该积极去主宰自己的生活,让生活变得快乐起来。《每天一定要读的人生感悟》通过一个个感动心灵的小故事,从生活的各个方面去反映、探索快乐的真谛。它能够帮助读者消除生活中的各种羁绊,走出心灵的误区,让心灵在快乐的空气中自由飞翔。
  • 发个微信去天庭

    发个微信去天庭

    当秦奋手机微信摇出了天庭朋友圈,他发现自己的人生变了,但天庭的变化更惊悚。想要金点子,行,拿东西来换,我不挑食。超市,串串香,等一系列熟悉的东西对原有的天庭造成了冲击。秦奋看着天庭的物产,发现自己似乎要发了。种田,数钱,好多事要做。我是先吃蟠桃呢,还是九转金丹。PS:内签已过,人品嘛,我很有节操可以吗?求点求收求票票,求包养一群(566830963),二群(366756421)已满,全订V群(513424835)新书上传《我在天庭作死的日子》
  • 岁时文化

    岁时文化

    《岁时文化》主要内容分为悠久的岁时文化、岁时文化的四季等章节。岁时文化是与我们的文明相伴而生的,其历史之悠久,内涵之丰富,生命力之强大,已成为与我们日常生活、意识、情感紧密联系又蓬勃律动的鲜活基因。岁时文化可以增进现代人对自然和历史的尊重,岁时文化的来源就是自然物候的变化。春节、元宵节、清明踏青、元宵赏月、重阳辞青等,都是踏着自然的节拍进行的。重视岁时文化有利于我们审视自己,继往开来。
  • 御兽萌妃闯异世

    御兽萌妃闯异世

    她,二十一世纪的金牌特工,却被他逼下悬崖。醒来后,竟穿越到异世,好吧好吧,那我就安安静静做我的王府小姐吧,天赋逆天?精神力超群?无限契约?药毒双神?咳咳,要低调。哇塞!捡到一个无限空间,哇塞,捡到一个绝版药鼎,哇塞,捡到一个小萌宠,咦?一群兽兽扑面而来。“妈呀!咋还有那么多!”一群兽兽“主银,主银,契约我!!!”谁能告诉我这个扒着我大腿不放的男子是谁?“亲爱哒!”“......滚!”
  • 山区最后一班列车

    山区最后一班列车

    不是梦想,不是岁月,只为自己的那份执着,守护自己的家乡,为了最后的回忆。
  • 金牌主持

    金牌主持

    有人说,他是主持界的半壁江山。他说,他不仅是主持界的半壁江山,他还是音乐界、小说界、影视界、综艺界……所有界的半壁江山。他是汪谦,他是汪半壁。
  • 重生之权宠小仙妻

    重生之权宠小仙妻

    额头的疼痛让季云溪醒了过来,当眼睛看到那破旧的屋顶,还有点点发霉的痕迹。鼻腔中忽然溢满了烟熏刺鼻的味道,脑袋发疼,眼前一黑。当意识回来的时候,脑海却多了十几年的陌生记忆,季云溪再次睁眼,看着自己那粗糙地小手发呆。她成为了另一个季云溪,在这个八五年年代。“季云溪,起来了就给我干活,成天好吃懒做。”就在季云溪才坐起来的时候,一个巨吼让季云溪吓了一大跳。季云溪从记忆中得知,眼……
  • 绝色傲骨女子:相思焚城

    绝色傲骨女子:相思焚城

    宁若自小父母双亡,为躲避婚约而立下誓约——一年为期,身无分文游历江湖。期间,易容改貌偶遇翩翩公子简宁枫,心生爱慕却被伤透了心。幸得温润如玉的天下第一公子沈昱照顾,并一同经历了三个美人悬疑故事——花神祭,雪不渡,不死鸟。三卷故事,每一个都动人心魄,暗藏杀机与秘密,也深埋着最虐最泣血揪心的过往……美人倾国倾城,相思焚心焚骨。宁若与沈昱经历重重险象,次次错过又重逢,深谙彼此心意,不料十年前的青冥宫噩梦来袭,漫天遍野的青蝶缠绕在澹台家,混乱的梦境里,父母死去的真相,宁若辨不清的真假,她与他在明白彼此后是否能走到最后?
  • 扫把娃娃去流浪

    扫把娃娃去流浪

    莫名其妙!她不过是想搭个便车,他干嘛不屑的撂下一句不会娶她的话。死老外!以为长得帅又有钱了不起啊,竟敢讥笑她没长相、没身材又没脑袋。士可杀不可辱,这个“老鼠冤”结定了。风水轮流转,才一天就转回她这边——他知错的道歉并请她当临时保母。面对帅得很秀色可餐的一代美男,她性情大变的成了个发春色女,死盯着他的裸胸差点流下垂涎的口水。只是她还来不及朝他伸出魔掌,他这只披着羊皮的狼却先把她吃干抹尽……
  • 问剑诛心

    问剑诛心

    站在生与死的边缘线上,绯流樱回首过去,她看到的不再是牢笼,她看到的是:焰流火对家国的深情寒流霜对向往的追求月流萤对自由的随行夜流尘对信仰的守护烟流云对情感的执着以及自己的不认命和离经叛道。她要推翻一切生来彷徨的枷锁,斩断羁绊的束缚,哪怕前路再曲再折、再漫再长,哪怕前路只有死亡。所有的爱与不爱,恨与不恨都在一次又一次的摧残之中浮浮沉沉,放大所有的荒唐和不羁与全世界为敌,哪怕又输给了自己,输给了全世界。纵身一跃,向死神的怀抱靠近,她虽将与死神拥抱,可她的信仰永恒不灭,一个绯流樱死了还会有第二个、第三个乃至无数个,她灰飞烟灭也不可惜,因为她是这自由堕落的继承者。她是神祗、她是恶魔、她是抵抗生来成囚的枷锁与牢笼的命运弃子。整个宇宙都是被黑暗包围的,丑、恶与黑暗终将湮灭所谓光明。