[A Bicycle of Cathay by Frank R. Stockton]@TWC D-Link book
A Bicycle of Cathay

CHAPTER III
16/27

You need not be annoyed by the peculiarity of your attire.
If you desire to avoid observation you can remain here until it grows darker, and then you can walk up to the mansion.

I shall have a bed-room prepared for you, and whenever you choose you can occupy it.
I have been informed that you have had something to eat, and it is as well, for perhaps your dress would prevent you from accepting an invitation to our evening meal." I still held my brier-wood pipe in my hand, and I felt inclined to hurl it at the dapper head of the consequential little gentleman, but with such a girl standing by it would have been impossible to treat him with any disrespect, and as I looked at him I felt sure that his apparent superciliousness was probably the result of too much money and too little breeding.
The young lady said nothing, but she turned and looked steadily at her father.

Her countenance was probably in the habit of very promptly expressing the state of her mind, and it now seemed to say to her father, "I hope that what you have said will not make him decline what you offer!" My irritation quickly disappeared.

I had now entered into my Cathay, and I must take things as I found them there.

As I could not stay where I was, and could not continue my journey, it would be a sensible thing to overlook the man's manner and accept his offer, and I accordingly did so.


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