Library / Literature & Fiction
The Lion and the Unicorn
- Pages
- about 138
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2.5 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
Prentiss had a long lease on the house, and because it stood in Jermyn
Street the upper floors were, as a matter of course, turned into
lodgings for single gentlemen; and because Prentiss was a Florist to the
Queen, he placed a lion and unicorn over his flowershop, just in front
of the middle window on the first floor. By stretching a little, each of
them could see into the window just beyond him, and could hear all that
was said inside; and such things as they saw and heard during the reign
of Captain Carrington, who moved in at the same time they did! By day
the table in the centre of the room was covered with maps, and the
Captain sat with a box of pins, with different-colored flags wrapped
around them, and amused himself by sticking them in the maps and
measuring the spaces in between, swearing meanwhile to himself. It was a
selfish amusement, but it appeared to be the Captain’s only intellectual
pursuit, for at night, the maps were rolled up, and a green cloth was
spread across the table, and there was much company and popping of
soda-bottles, and little heaps of gold and silver were moved this way
and that across the cloth. The smoke drifted out of the open windows,
and the laughter of the Captain’s guests rang out loudly in the empty
street, so that the policeman halted and raised his eyes reprovingly to
the lighted windows, and cabmen drew up beneath them and lay in wait,
dozing on their folded arms, for the Captain’s guests to depart. The
Lion and the Unicorn were rather ashamed of the scandal of it, and they
were glad when, one day, the Captain went away with his tin boxes and
gun-cases piled high on a four-wheeler.
A short sample. Read the whole book
More to read
- "Captains Courageous": A Story of the Grand BanksRudyard KiplingLiterature & Fiction191 pages
- "Captains Courageous": A Story of the Grand BanksRudyard KiplingLiterature & Fiction191 pages
- "I Say No"Wilkie CollinsLiterature & Fiction428 pages
- "Miss Lou"Edward Payson RoeLiterature & Fiction409 pages
- "Speaking of Operations--"Irvin S. CobbLiterature & Fiction37 pages
Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks or a similar open source. Copyright differs between countries. Rights holder? See our takedown process.