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Roscoe
BY SEWELL FORD
WE took Roscoe, as you might say, in three instalments. That is, three brief glipses of him at different stages were, awarded us, with intervals of a year between each glimpse. Just three little hints of him, yet so comprehensive that we felt we could not have known Roscoe better had we watched him from the cradle up.
It was at Something-or-Other-in-the-Pines. Folks go there in February and March to escape pneumonia and to contract weariness of soul. There it was that Roscoe was thrust upon us. Honestly, if left to ourselves we never should have achieved Roscoe,—never! But Mrs. J. Kempton Peppergrin—she was Roscoe's mother, you know—gave us no opportunity for escape. Before and after each meal she pumped Roscoe into us, much as if the story of him was some new cure, like mineral water, to be taken regularly and in large doses.
In part first the dear boy—that was Roscoe—was supposed to be a mental and physical wreck. True, he didn't look it—physically at least, for he was a well-developed, carefully groomed personage. As he stood, that first day in the sun-parlor, looking us over, one gloved hand languidly stroking a straw-colored mustache, an old maid in the corner glanced timidly over the top of a paper-bound copy of Ardath and sighed to herself, "What a pretty man!" She used the exact adjective. Other men might have had the same wavy blond hair, the same Grecian nose, the same military shoulders and French waist, without being called pretty. Roscoe had them and was called pretty.
"The poor darling!" gurgled Mrs. Peppergrin. "He has been so overworked. He has been settling the estate, you know, and he has no head at all for business. It bores
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At almost any hour of the day you might see her
trotting after him
him horribly. His father always managed everything, but I do wish he could have left the property in better shape. Joshua was so thoughtless of Roscoe's feelings. Of course, he was taken suddenly, but it would have been such a relief to Roscoe if Mr. Pepper-
