urtle! O dapibus suprimi grata testudo Jovis! I am an Alderman when I think of thee! Well: it was noon in Chepe.
But were all battling for gain there? Among the many brilliant shops whose casements shone upon Chepe, there stood one a century back (about which period our tale opens) devoted to the sale of Colonial produce. A rudely carved image of a negro, with a fantastic plume and apron of variegated feathers, decorated the lintel. The East and West had sent their contributions to replenish Maillot Toronto FC Pas CHer the window.
The poor slave had toiled, died perhaps, to produce yon Philippe Coutinho Tröja pyramid of swarthy sugar marked “ONLY 6 1/2d.”— That catty box, on which was the epigraph “STRONG FAMILY CONGO ONLY 3s. 9d,” was from the country of Confutzee — that heap of dark produce bore the legend “TRY OUR REAL NUT”—’Twas Cocoa — and that nut the Cocoa-nut, whose milk Montreal Canadiens Drakter has refreshed the traveller and perplexed the natural Russland Drakt Barn philosopher. The shop in question was, in a word, a Grocer’s.
In the midst of the shop and its gorgeous contents sat one who, to judge from his appearance (though ’twas a difficult task, as, in sooth, his back was turned), had just reached that happy period of life when the Boy is expanding into the Man. O Youth, Youth! Happy and Beautiful! O fresh and roseate dawn of life; when the dew yet lies on the flowers, ere they have been scorched and withered by Passion’s fiery Sun! Immersed in thought or study, and indifferent to the din around him, sat the boy. A careless guardian was he of the treasures confided to him. The crowd passed in Chepe; Oakland Raiders Barn he never marked it. The sun shone on Andres Iniesta Tröja Chepe; he Los Angeles Rams only asked that it should illumine the page he read. The knave might filch his treasures; he was heedless of the knave. The customer might enter; but his book was all in all to him.
And indeed a customer WAS there; a little hand was tapping on the counter with a pretty impatience; a pair of arch eyes were gazing at the boy, admiring, perhaps, his manly proportions through the homely and tightened garments he wore. |
