Roxy Hastings — page 233: what you’re looking at

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

224 ROXY HASTINGS. Nothing could be more prepossessing than the manners of this handsome young man, whose pale and intellectual countenance indicated a student life, and whose own draw- back, if it ought to be so considered, was a name which provoked a smile whenever it was uttered. “Mr. Tinklepaugh, Lieutenant Lee. Miss Lee, Mr. Tinklepaugh.”’ Such was the introduction amid scarcely suppressed smiles, in which the stranger joined, though not without a slight blush to betoken his embarrassment. As the captain had vouched for the entire respectability of this young gentleman, and as his dress was as faultless as his deportment, there was noreason for Alfred and Laura depriving themselves of his agreeable society, of which he seemed willing to accord them a great deal. Not that he ever obtruded himself upon them ; on the contrary, Alfred made by far the most advances, and seemed to at- tain to a rapid intimacy with him, before Laura had passed the more formal stages of acquaintanceship. “Tinklepaugh! Tinklepaugh !” she would say. “I can’t speak to him without laughing, Alf. It is impossible. I must shun him.” “Nonsense! You’ll soon get used to it, and then you’ll think nothing of it.” ‘But let me avoid him then, until I do get used to it, for I certainly cannot say ‘good-morning, Mr. Tinklepaugh,’ without laughing broadly.” “Then don’t say it. Say ‘good-morning, sir.’ ” “Well, if that will do, I'll try to meet him. But I thought that was not a very polite mode of address.” “ He will undertsand the reason, and make allowances.” But there was no resisting the fascinations of Mr. Tinkel- paugh, and in a few days the intimacy of these three young people had ripened to such a degree that they all laughed openly about his odd name, which began to lose something of its repulsiveness in Laura’s ears. | He was intelligent; he danced and sang well; he sketched from nature, evidently with an educated hand, and he was fully competent to instruct Laura at chess, al- though she had considered herself quite proficient in that intellectual game. They played a great deal, and as Alf did not even know a rook from a knight, they were often left alone over their sport, while the lieutenant was deep in some absorbing book, or was writing letters home, or was smoking his cherished cigar on deck. Eomicbooks.co