Guy Hammersley; or, Clearing his Name — page 82: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

GUY HAMMERSLEY. 73 and the colonel whispered through his set teeth : ‘I told you how you ought to dress. You'd better have taken my advice.” As may be imagined this species of ‘‘I told you so” remark was not calculated to steady poor Ward’s tottering limbs, but by a seeming anomaly of condi- tions, this 1s what it actually served to do. ‘“‘Tll show him that I’m worth something more to him than a show,” he resolved, with sudden determi- nation, and the combination of indignation he felt against the colonel and the firm purpose to excel that had on the instant taken possession of him brought a sparkle to his eye and a color to his cheek that made him even handsomer than usual. He played entirely by ear, and sitting down at the piano, he struck into the popular overture to the ‘* Merry Wives of Windsor,” and rendered it with such verve and dash that when he ceased, a perfect storm of applause came as if by common consent, and irresistible impulse. Ward rose and bowed his thanks, but very politely declined to respond to an encore, and as he walked off the stage with his limbs quite steady now, a young lady in the front seat gigglingly whispered to her neighbor: ‘‘ My, Lu, isn’t he stunning looking ?” Warmed into good humor, the spectators greeted Mrs. ‘‘ King” (the stage name Mrs. Hammersley had assumed) with a burst of hand clapping when she appeared, led out by the young pianist who had captured their fancy by sheer force of will. And in- deed her appearance was such as to win admiration for her at the outset, before she had sung a note. Gomicboo cS (E(0) m —_