BEST SELLER BY O HENRY: CLASS IX (C.B.S.E.) PART-I & II

 BEST SELLER BY O HENRY: CLASS IX (C.B.S.E.) 

PART-1

L-5: Best Seller by O. Henry: Class IX

The narrator was going to Pittsburgh on a business tour one day during last summer. He was travelling in a chair car which was filled with people. 

 

Some of them were ladies wearing brown silk dresses stitched in several styles. Men were also travelling among them. They seemed to be from different businesses. The narrator was sitting in chair No. 07 and he was busy noticing the backside of the head of a person, who was sitting in chair No. 09.

All of a sudden, the person sitting in chair No. 09 hurled (threw) a book on the floor between his chair and the window uttering some critical comments. The narrator read its title ‘’The Rose Lady and Trevelyan’, one of the bestselling novels of that time. After that, the person turned his chair towards the window.

The moment the narrator had a glimpse of the man in chair No. 09, he recognized him immediately. He was John A Pescud, whom he met two years ago. He was a travelling salesman of a plate-glass company 'Cambria Steel Works'.

Within a few minutes, they started talking about the usual topics about rain, prosperity, health, residence and destination. Very soon those topics were exhausted. It seemed that the narrator did not like politics.

Then we come to know from the narrator that Pescud was a man of small stature and did not look handsome. He also believed that plate glass was the most important commodity (a useful thing) and his company Cambria Steel Works was the best company. He also told the narrator that a person ought to be decent and law-abiding in his hometown.

The narrator said that he had never had the chance to know about his views on life, romance, literature, and ethics (moral principles that control one’ behaviour) in his small meetings in the past.

The narrator also came to know from Pescud that his business was flourishing and he was going to Coke-town. After that, he stirred (moved) the discarded (thrown) book with his hand and asked the narrator if he had read any of such best sellers. He also explained that he meant to say if he had read the novel in which the hero was an American wealthy person, maybe from Chicago, who fell in love with a royal princess from Europe, travelling in the guise of an ordinary girl under a fake name and the hero followed her to her father’s home (palace). The Pescud told the narrator that all such novels had the same theme and story. Such things do not happen in real life.

After that Pescud continued telling the story of the princess being followed by the hero of the story. He said that the hero chased the girl to her residence and came to know all about the girl. Then he met her in the evening and talked for a long time. The line ‘She reminds him of the difference in their stations’ may mean that she told him about the difference between the statuses of their families. It may also mean the geographical distance between their houses. Another line ‘that gives him a chance to ring in three solid pages about America’s uncrowned sovereigns’ means that…

Pescud continues saying that if the narrator had read any of such novels, he would come to know that the hero slaps the king’s Swiss body-guards whenever they get in his way. He was a great fencer also.

 

He also said that such stories are real and believable and he also knew something about literature in spite of his odd business.

Best Seller by O Henry Part II

Gradually Pescud started asking the landlord about the family who lived in that big white house o the hill.

The landlord told him that everyone in that area knew as to who lived in that house. It was Colonel Allyn, the biggest (the wealthiest) and the man having the finest qualities in Virginia or anywhere else.

He also added that they were the oldest family in the state and the girl who had got off the train was the old man’s daughter. She had gone to see her aunt, who was sick.

Pescud stayed at the hotel and on the third day, he saw the young lady walking in the front yard, down next to the paling fence. He asked her if she could tell him where Mr. Hinkle lived.

She looked at him coolly as if she thought that he had come to see the weeding of the garden. But Pescud saw just a slight twinkle of fun in her eyes.

She told him that no person of that name lived in that village, Birchton as far as she knew. Pescud felt amused at it and told her that he was serious about it.

She also understood that he had come from a long distance.

He said that he would have gone a thousand miles farther... 

Jessie completed the rest of the sentence by saying that if he had not woken up at the railway station because the train had started moving.

After saying that, she turned red as one of the roses on the bushes in the yard. Pescud was amazed to listen to that and wondered as to how she could know it. 

He remembered that he had fallen asleep at a bench in Shelbyville station.

He was waiting to see as to which train she would take and he had managed to wake in time. After that, Pescud explained honestly the reason why he had come there. He told her everything about himself and also that he wanted to get acquainted with her and wished that she would like him.

She smiled a little and blushed also.

She explained to him that she had never talked to anyone in the past in that way and asked her about his full name.

He told her that it was John A Pescud.

Then she added that he was about to miss the train at Powhatan junction. She said that with laughter that it sounded very good to Pescud.

He asked Jessie as to how she knew that. She told him that she knew that he was on every train and she had thought that he would speak to her.

After that, both of them had more conversation and at last, a kind of proud serious look came on her face. Then she turned and pointed her finger at the big house.

She said that the Allyns had been living there for five hundred years. They were a proud family. Their mansion had fifty rooms and Jessie also told him to see the pillars, porches, and balconies. The ceilings in the reception rooms and ballrooms were twenty-eight feet high. Her father was a lineal descendant of belted earls.

She also told him that her father would not allow her to talk to any stranger. If he came to know about it, he would lock her in her room.

Pescud asked her if she would allow him to enter the mansion and if she would talk to him if he wished.

She clearly told him that he must not talk to her because they were strangers to each other. It was not proper to talk, so she bade him goodbye. But Pescud told her that he would come to meet her father the next day. At this, she laughingly said that her father would feed him to his foxhounds. He said that he would improve the speed of his hounds because he himself was a good hunter. After that, she told him that she ought not to have spoken to him at all and bade him goodbye wishing that he would also have a pleasant trip back to Minneapolis or Pittsburgh.

He bade her good night and also asked her to tell him her first name. In the beginning, she hesitated, but at last, she told him that it was Jessie.

The next morning, at eleven sharp, he rang the doorbell of that World’s Fair main building. After forty-five minutes, an old man about eight showed up and asked Pescud what he wanted. He gave him his business car4d and said that he wanted to meet the Colonel. He showed him in. There wasn’t enough furniture in.

When Colonel Allyn came, the place seemed to light up. A band was heard being played. It was the colonel’s style although he was in the same shabby clothes as he was in at the railway station.

For a few seconds, Pescud was confused. But he got his confidence back. The colonel told him to sit and Pescud related everything; how he followed his daughter and what he had done for her. He also told him about his salary and his bright future. He did not forget to tell the colonel about the code of his life i.e. to be always decent and right in his hometown.

At first, Pescud thought that the colonel was going to throw him out of his mansion, but he continued telling everything to the Colonel.

After that, the colonel started laughing and it seemed to Pescud that the colonel had laughed for the first time. Then they talked for two hours and the colonel asked him several questions.

Then the colonel mentioned that there was a Sir Courtenay Pescud in the time of Charles I, but Pescud refused him having any kinship with him. He told the colonel that their family lived around Pittsburgh and he had an uncle in the real-estate business. He told the colonel that he could enquire about his family background from him. He also narrated anecdotes to the colonel.

After listening to it, the colonel said that he had never been so fortunate and he also said that anecdotes and humorous occurrences had always been a very good way of promoting and perpetuating (maintaining for a long time) relationship between friends. He also offered to narrate a fox-hunting story to Pescud.

After two evenings, he had a chance to speak a word with Miss Jessie alone while the Colonel was thinking up another story.

Pescud told Jessie that the evening was going to be a pleasant one.

Jessie said that her father was coming and he was going to narrate that time a story about the old African and the green watermelons. Both of them talked a little more. Then she went into the house through one of the big windows of the house.

Pescud and the narrator then reached Coketown and Pescud gathered his hat and baggage to get down of the chair car. Before getting down, he told something more to the narrator. He said that he married Jessie one year ago. He also added that he had built a house in the East End and the colonel was also staying with them. He would be waiting for him to listen to a new story from him when he reached home even if he would pick up from the road.

The narrator looked out of the window of the chair car and saw that Coketown was looking nothing more than a rough hillside on which there were several huts looking like black dots under the dim cover of the heavy downpour out. 

Pescud asked him the purpose of getting down at Coketown. He told him that he had dropped off there to get some petunias for Jessie. She used to raise them there in her old house in Virginia. Then Pescud bade goodnight to the narrator and also invited him to visit them at his new house.

After that the train moved forward. One of the ladies in dotted brown insisted on having the window raised as the rain beat against them.

The narrator saw downward at the best seller. He picked it up and placed it carefully farther along on the floor of the car, where the raindrops would not fall on it. Then with a smile, he reflected upon the idea that life has no geographical boundaries. It is the same everywhere. 

The narrator also bade goodbye to the hero of the best seller Trevelyan and wished if he could get petunias for his princess.