Flight to Canada Read Online Free
Mr. Swille.”
Momentarily, Lincoln, Gary Cooper-awkward, fidgeting with his stovepipe hat, humble-looking, imperfect—a wart here and there—craw and skuttlecoat, shawl, enters the room. “Mr. Swille, it’s a pleasure,” he says, extending his hand to Swille, who sits behind a desk rumored to have been owned by Napoleon III. “I’m a small-time lawyer and now I find myself in the room of the mighty, why—”
“Cut the yokel-dokel, Lincoln, I don’t have all day. What’s on your mind?” Swille rejects Lincoln’s hand, at which Lincoln stares, hurt.
“Yokel-dokel? Why, I don’t get you, Mr. Swille.”
“Oh, you know—log-cabin origin. That’s old and played out. Why don’t you get some new speech writers? Anyway, you’re the last man I expected to see down here. Aren’t you supposed to be involved in some kind of war? Virginia’s off limits to your side, isn’t it? Aren’t you frightened, man?”
“No, Mr. Swille. We’re not frightened because we have a true cause. We have a great, a noble cause. Truth is on our side, marching to the clarion call. We are in the cause of the people. It is a people’s cause. This is a great, noble and people period in the history of our great Republic. We call our war the Civil War, but some of the fellows think we ought to call it the War Between the States. You own fifty million dollars’ worth of art, Mr. Swille. What do you think we ought to call it?”
“I don’t feel like naming it, Lanky—and cut the poppycock.”
“Lincoln, sir.”
“Oh yes, Lincoln. Well, look, Lincoln, I don’t want that war to come up here because, to tell you the truth, I’m not the least bit interested in that war. I hate contemporary politics and probably will always be a Tory. Bring back King George. Why would a multinational like myself become involved in these queer crises? Why, just last week I took a trip abroad and was appallingly and disturbingly upset and monumentally offended by the way the Emperor of France was scoffing at this … this nation, as you call it. They were snickering about your general unkempt, hirsute and bungling appearance—bumping into things and carrying on. And your speeches. What kind of gibberish are they? Where were you educated, in the rutabaga patch? Why don’t you put a little pizazz in your act, Lanky? Like Davis … Now that Davis is as nit as a spit with his satin-embroidered dressing case, his gold tweezers and Rogers & Sons strap. He’s just bananas about Wagner and can converse in German, French and even that bloody Mexican patois. Kindly toward the ‘weak’ races, as he referred to them in that superb speech he made before the Senate criticizing Secretary of State Seward and other celebrities for financing that, that … maniac, John Brown. And when he brought in that savage, Black Hawk, on the steamboat Winnebago, he treated the primitive overlord with the respect due an ethnic celebrity. You can imagine the Americans taunting this heathen all decked out in white deerskins. Davis’ slaves are the only ones I know of who take mineral baths, and when hooped skirts became popular he gave some to the slave women, and when this made it awkward for them to move through the rows of cotton, he widened the rows.”
“That’s quite impressive, Mr. Swille. I have a worthy adversary.”
Swille, smirking and squinting, flicks the ashes from a cigar given him by the King of Belgium. “An intellectual. What an intellectual. Loggerhead turtles? Oysters? Hogarth? Optics? Anything you want to know, Davis’s got the answer. And his beautiful wife. More brilliant than most men. As aristocratic as Eugénie, wife of my good friend Imperial Majesty Napoleon Bonaparte III. I was having dinner with her just a few weeks ago. You know, she’s the daughter of the Count of Montijo and the Duke of Peneranda. Men who like nothing but the best. I call her Gennie, since we move in the same circles. Why, I’m thinking about refurbishing the Morocco
Momentarily, Lincoln, Gary Cooper-awkward, fidgeting with his stovepipe hat, humble-looking, imperfect—a wart here and there—craw and skuttlecoat, shawl, enters the room. “Mr. Swille, it’s a pleasure,” he says, extending his hand to Swille, who sits behind a desk rumored to have been owned by Napoleon III. “I’m a small-time lawyer and now I find myself in the room of the mighty, why—”
“Cut the yokel-dokel, Lincoln, I don’t have all day. What’s on your mind?” Swille rejects Lincoln’s hand, at which Lincoln stares, hurt.
“Yokel-dokel? Why, I don’t get you, Mr. Swille.”
“Oh, you know—log-cabin origin. That’s old and played out. Why don’t you get some new speech writers? Anyway, you’re the last man I expected to see down here. Aren’t you supposed to be involved in some kind of war? Virginia’s off limits to your side, isn’t it? Aren’t you frightened, man?”
“No, Mr. Swille. We’re not frightened because we have a true cause. We have a great, a noble cause. Truth is on our side, marching to the clarion call. We are in the cause of the people. It is a people’s cause. This is a great, noble and people period in the history of our great Republic. We call our war the Civil War, but some of the fellows think we ought to call it the War Between the States. You own fifty million dollars’ worth of art, Mr. Swille. What do you think we ought to call it?”
“I don’t feel like naming it, Lanky—and cut the poppycock.”
“Lincoln, sir.”
“Oh yes, Lincoln. Well, look, Lincoln, I don’t want that war to come up here because, to tell you the truth, I’m not the least bit interested in that war. I hate contemporary politics and probably will always be a Tory. Bring back King George. Why would a multinational like myself become involved in these queer crises? Why, just last week I took a trip abroad and was appallingly and disturbingly upset and monumentally offended by the way the Emperor of France was scoffing at this … this nation, as you call it. They were snickering about your general unkempt, hirsute and bungling appearance—bumping into things and carrying on. And your speeches. What kind of gibberish are they? Where were you educated, in the rutabaga patch? Why don’t you put a little pizazz in your act, Lanky? Like Davis … Now that Davis is as nit as a spit with his satin-embroidered dressing case, his gold tweezers and Rogers & Sons strap. He’s just bananas about Wagner and can converse in German, French and even that bloody Mexican patois. Kindly toward the ‘weak’ races, as he referred to them in that superb speech he made before the Senate criticizing Secretary of State Seward and other celebrities for financing that, that … maniac, John Brown. And when he brought in that savage, Black Hawk, on the steamboat Winnebago, he treated the primitive overlord with the respect due an ethnic celebrity. You can imagine the Americans taunting this heathen all decked out in white deerskins. Davis’ slaves are the only ones I know of who take mineral baths, and when hooped skirts became popular he gave some to the slave women, and when this made it awkward for them to move through the rows of cotton, he widened the rows.”
“That’s quite impressive, Mr. Swille. I have a worthy adversary.”
Swille, smirking and squinting, flicks the ashes from a cigar given him by the King of Belgium. “An intellectual. What an intellectual. Loggerhead turtles? Oysters? Hogarth? Optics? Anything you want to know, Davis’s got the answer. And his beautiful wife. More brilliant than most men. As aristocratic as Eugénie, wife of my good friend Imperial Majesty Napoleon Bonaparte III. I was having dinner with her just a few weeks ago. You know, she’s the daughter of the Count of Montijo and the Duke of Peneranda. Men who like nothing but the best. I call her Gennie, since we move in the same circles. Why, I’m thinking about refurbishing the Morocco
Readers choose
Dara Girard
Rachel E. Cagle
P.J. Morse
Val McDermid
Celeste O. Norfleet
Anne Douglas
Sherryl Jordan
Mac McClelland
Jonathan Friesen
Ronie Kendig